Remnants
by Long-Haired Nick
Summary: 2 years after the events of Resident Evil 5, Leon S Kennedy is called in to investigate a series of bizarre reports from a small town north-west of LA, as well as keeping an eye on the BSAA investigation already taking place there.
1. BSAA Compound

**Remnants**

Author's Note: I'm a huge Resident Evil fan, so I thought I'd try my hand at writing a fanfic. I wanted to include most of the main characters, so sorry if this doesn't please you. I tried to keep the continuity going, but there'll probably be some errors in there somewhere. Anyway, enjoy!

**Chapter 1**

Leon was bored. He hated flying. He'd had far too many bad experiences with flying to ever enjoy it. Not that he was afraid or anything like that – after all the things Leon S Kennedy had seen over the years, a little height was nothing. But it had been a chopper that had allowed Ada to make her escape from the island with the Plaga sample; a chopper that had brought Mike the pilot his doom on that same island. He was meant to pay for drinks after it was all over, and thanks to being in a chopper, he never got to enjoy that drink with him. Thanks to a chopper, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Chris' then-partner Sheva Alomar had to go through hell, because Ada had used that chopper to supply Albert Wesker with a sample of the Plaga parasite. The sample _he _was supposed to have collected himself. Thanks to fucking choppers, Chris, Jill, Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers had to endure an entire night in that godforsaken Spencer Mansion. Not to mention all those S.T.A.R.S. that had their lives cut dramatically short. No, flying was the enemy. He _hated_ it.

He stared out the windows of the chopper, taking in the scenery below, trying to divert his attention away from the fact that he was in one. He was on his way to a small town in California. He couldn't remember the name off the top of his head, but that didn't matter. He knew what he had to know, and that was that he would be told everything when he arrived there. He was supposed to meet someone from the BSAA when he touched down. He'd be working intimately with them to solve some sort of imminent crisis. The government didn't seem to think the case warranted attention from the global anti-bioweapon organisation, but they'd let them think they were running the show until Leon could prove them wrong. After all, they'd done all the research and they had information the US government could use. Leon had a sick feeling that this would be another one of those days; because it always was, whenever they sent him on some mission by himself. Every time without fail, when he was by himself he ran into massive amounts of trouble. He just continued to stare at the ground, trying not to jinx himself.

"15 minutes till touchdown, Agent Kennedy." The pilot – a woman named Amy – yelled through the chopper's headsets.

"OK."

_Great. 15 more minutes of this shit_. He decided to keep himself occupied by reading through the reports he'd been supplied with - again. He'd already read them twice, and they were pretty vague: people had been attacked by 'zombies'. Familiar story. Apparently the victims all said their attackers were people who appeared totally normal. The only thing these initial attackers had in common was that they all worked at a power plant on the edge of town. But otherwise, they seemed like normal people with normal lives, showed no outward signs of anything unusual, and so no one had any reason to suspect a thing. The victims had bites and scratches, but the wounds had healed very quickly and there hadn't been time to investigate them, so no proof was gathered and the cases were all dismissed by the local PD. This all happened a few weeks ago, and the reports had quadrupled since then. By now, almost everyone in the town, except for those who worked at the power plant, had made a report: even the policemen and women who were dealing with the problem. So the BSAA had charged in there and found nothing of interest, but kept up the investigation anyway. When the government found out that the BSAA were involved and had more intel on the case than the police did, Leon was despatched to keep an eye on them.

"Agent Kennedy, proceeding to land now. Good luck, sir."

"Thanks for the ride, Amy."  
"No problem, sir. Hope to see you again very soon." She said, smiling flirtatiously at him.

Leon smiled back and jumped out of the chopper when it was close enough to the ground. _Women_, he thought. _I'll never understand them as long as I live._ The chopper took off, leaving Leon in a temporary purpose-built compound set up as the base of operations for the investigations.

He walked towards a Lieutenant dressed in regular army colours who was standing guard outside one of the many tents set up around the area, holding a standard issue assault rifle at ready.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant." Leon asked, noting the soldier's rank. "Could you please tell me where I can find BSAA intelligence?" Leon asked as politely as he could.

"Identification, please." The soldier asked nonchalantly.

Leon whipped out his secret service badge and gave it to the soldier, who looked at it for all of two seconds before handing it back.

"Fourth tent on your right, Agent Kennedy. They're expecting you, sir."

"Thanks, Lieutenant."

Leon walked to the fourth tent on his right, as the soldier had directed. He heard what seemed to be familiar voices coming from the tent. At least one familiar voice he knew straight away, and another he was sure he knew from somewhere.

* * *

"Hey, Jill. We're expecting company from the government." Chris said, not really giving half a shit.

"What? Why?! Don't tell me they're keeping an eye on us. We're doing them a favour down here, and they send an agent in? Which is it, CIA? FBI?" Jill complained.

"Secret Service." Chris answered, still not giving a shit.

"What the...why the secret service?"

"Well, apparently they have some sort of expert on this sort of thing. God knows who it is. I can only think of six 'experts' off the top of my head, and we're two of them. What more does this crap warrant? My sister's another one. And Barry and Brad, but they're never coming back. Even if you _can_ call Brad Vickers an expert. The only other one is-"

"Leon S Kennedy."

Leon appeared in the doorway of the tent, a serious look on his face, as per usual.

"I don't believe it..." Chris said, his jaw about 2 inches lower than normal. "Leon Scott Kennedy. Long time, no speak, man! Last I heard from you, you were telling me where my sister was. And now I've lost her again!"

"It's great to finally meet you, Chris." Leon said, a broad grin spread across his face. He turned to face Jill. "And you must be the famous and beautiful Jill Valentine. Your profile pictures don't do you justice." He said, extending a hand.

"Beautiful? So he's charming _and_ tough." Jill smiled, taking Leon's hand and shaking it firmly. "Oh, this is stupid." She pulled Leon in roughly and gave him a hug. "It's so great to meet you! All these years, both survivors, and we've never even met before!"

"How about that..." Leon said, laughing, giving her a friendly pat on the back as he was being crushed to death by Jill. "So we're in on this together, huh? I wonder if they realise who they have in their midst?"

"Probably not. This all seems like a wild goose chase to me. We're looking for something that doesn't seem to exist. Whole town's nuts. We're wasting our time." Chris said, looking tired and frustrated.

"Yeah, we've been here for days and found almost nothing. We haven't witnessed anything unusual at all, the whole time. Just seems like a bunch of crazy townsfolk making up stories." Jill said.

"So what _have_ you found out?" Leon asked, puzzled.

"Well, the wounds we _have_ been able to look at were very much the same sort of thing as what we saw back in Raccoon City: bites and scratches. We came here expecting zombies and we got nothing. It's almost as if they're only zombies when we're not looking." Jill said, collapsing back in her chair.

"So how fast do the wounds heal? Are we talking Illuminados fast?" Leon enquired.

"Well I don't know if you've managed to get a hold of our report from Africa, but some of the infectees of Uroboros healed themselves pretty quick. You'd shoot off an appendage and it'd just sprout a new one. It's not quite that fast here, them not being mutated at all. They get to the hospital with these wounds, and within an hour, they're completely healed. We barely have time to receive a report of them even _being_ at the hospital before they're all healed up and ready to be discharged." Chris said.

"But outwardly, they're totally normal, right?"

"Right." Chris and Jill said.

"Has there been any scans done? CT scans or something like that?" Leon asked, feeling like he might be on to something.

"Yeah, we ordered a scan to be done on the three latest victims, and we're still waiting on the results. Should be here in an hour or so." Jill told him.

"OK, here's what I reckon. We wait for the results, and then take a look around the power plant. Armed, of course." Leon said.

"Yeah, that works for me. Jill?"

"Sure. I guess it couldn't hurt." Jill shrugged. "We haven't been there yet, we were told to wait for you before we did anything else. That was what I was gonna suggest anyway."

"OK then, it's settled. So why don't one of you two lovely people show me around?" Leon grinned.

Chris and Jill looked at each other, Jill glaring at Chris, who quickly relented.

"Sure, let's go." Chris said.

"Aw, come on Jill. I'm not that bad, am I?" Leon said.

"No offense intended, Leon. I'm just tired, that's all. I need a nap. I'm getting old, you know." Jill smiled and walked out of the tent, probably to her own tent. Leon looked at Chris, his face scrunched up in an unspoken question. Chris just laughed.

"Don't worry about her, you get used to it."

The two walked around the compound, Chris showing Leon what everyone was doing and who was involved with what, introducing him to a few key personnel as they went. Just as they were nearing the origin of their tour, Chris turned to face Leon.

"Leon, I gotta admit I was feeling a bit sceptical when command told us that a Secret Service agent was taking charge of the investigation. But I'm glad it was you they sent. It's great to finally work alongside you, someone I think I can finally relate to. After all that crazy shit with Wesker and Umbrella over the years, I was starting to think I'd have to go solo from now on." Chris said.

"Yeah I know what you mean. I've always asked to be sent by myself on all my missions, 'cause I hate answering questions about my past. And I had no idea I was being sent to babysit you two. If I knew, I would have arranged a bigger entrance." Leon said with a grin.

"Speaking of babysitting, weren't you assigned to the president's daughter's detail?"

"Yeah, but when they hear pretty much anything that sounds like bioweapons of any kind, they send me. They must think I enjoy it or something."

"Ha! You should join the BSAA. We could use a man of your experience." Chris laughed.

"I'll think about it. But being secret service gets me a lot of attention from women. Not something that's easy to give up." Leon smiled slyly.

"Oh yeah? When you get Jill Valentine flirting with you, _then_ I'll be impressed. Until then, you're just another guy."

The two laughed and walked back towards the intelligence tent, but were stopped by the same Lieutenant that Leon had spoken to before.

"Agent Redfield, Agent Kennedy." The soldier addressed them formally before stopping to catch his breath. "There's a woman at the gates to the compound. She's quite attractive, and says she knows you both, but refuses to show ID. She's demanding to speak to 'Agent Leon Scott Kennedy' immediately, sir."

"Thanks, Lieutenant Vickers." Leon said to the soldier, who saluted them both and marched off.

_Unfortunate name_, Chris thought to himself. _I've spoken to him twice in my entire life, and I already know that he's braver than his namesake. _He looked at Leon, who was grinning at him.

"Just another guy, huh?"

"Shut up."

They jogged off to the entrance to the compound, Chris leading the way. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks, almost hitting Leon in the process.

"What the hell, man?" Leon said, before looking up and realising why Chris had stopped. His eyes opened wide and he quickly ran to catch up to Chris, who had bolted for the gate to let the redheaded girl in.

* * *

"Don't you ever get cold wearing shorts all the time?" Chris asked the girl, who was dressed in short denim shorts like she nearly always was, a red shirt that matched her hair, and a short denim vest-jacket that was buttoned once across her chest.

"It's my style. And Leon doesn't mind, do you Leon?"

"Please, not while Chris is here. He's a big guy, you know." Leon said, laughing nervously and blushing.

The girl ran to Chris and gave him an almighty hug.

"How've you been, Big Brother? I was expecting Leon, but you're here too? This is too good to be true!" Claire said, releasing him.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" Chris asked, smiling so broadly his face was beginning to hurt.

"Well, I heard from some sources that there was something going down in this small town in California, and that the Secret Service had been sent in. So I came to check it out, looking for Leon."

"Sources?" Chris asked, arms folded and a questioning look on his face.

"Yeah." Claire said defensively, looking at the ground. "I can't compromise my sources."

"I think I know who she's talking about." Leon said, hands in pockets, a mischievous smile creeping across his face. Chris looked at Leon, then at Claire.

"Fine, keep your secrets." He laughed, then hugged his sister again. "You look great, Claire. Regardless of the situation, it's good to see you again."

Claire smiled warmly, then looked at Leon as his radio started going off. She unhooked it from his belt and pressed the 'answer' button. A beautiful girl with glasses and tied-back brown hair appeared on its screen.

"Claire, you made it." She said, smiling. "So that means Leon's with you. You'll be taking your orders from him; he's your 'commanding officer', so to speak. Well that's all I needed to see, you'll update me when the situation arises?"

"Sure, Hunnigan. Thanks for your help! We'll have a coffee some time, my shout." Claire answered.

"I'll take you up on that next time you're in DC. Good luck, 'Agent' Redfield." Hunnigan laughed and disappeared from the little screen."

"What was that all about?" Chris said, stupefied, staring blankly at Leon as Claire put the radio back on Leon's belt.

"Your big-little sister here managed to get in touch with Hunnigan through her TerraSave contacts, and told her that I'd asked for Claire explicitly to be my ground-side advisor during the mission." Leon explained, as Claire looked up at Chris in a cheeky little sister fashion. "Hunnigan didn't believe her, of course, so she did a background check. She saw that she was a Raccoon survivor, so she radioed me and told me the situation. I wasn't expecting any danger, and I thought it'd be good to catch up. Plus, having been around the T-Virus before, if there was any trouble, she'd be a huge help. That was before I found out you and Jill were here, of course."

"I see...so is that her official role here? Ground-side advisor? I didn't know civilians could just walk into operations like these." Chris said, still puzzled.

"Well normally they can't. But because of Claire's special background, and because I'm supposed to be in charge here, we made an exception. Plus, she had a bit of firearms training with me a while back, before the Illuminados incident. Just for fun. Not that she actually needed it or anything." Leon answered. Chris thought silently for a second, then looked back to his little sister.

"Well, it _is_ great to see you, and you _are_ a damn side smarter than Leon and I. This might work out pretty well." He relented to the situation, and smiled heartily at Claire. He hated Claire being in dangerous situations, his brotherly instinct was always to keep her miles away from any trouble. But he had to admit, she was pretty good at handling herself. He always knew she was clever, and tough. Even before she was 18 and went looking for him in what remained of Raccoon City, she was always a smart kid, and always did well at sports too. But he never expected that she'd turn out to be as skilful and intelligent as she was. She'd survived Raccoon City. She'd survived Rockfort Island. She'd helped kill the G-Virus mutated William Birkin, she'd even helped _him_ get rid of Wesker. Not that it kept him down for long, but that was a huge feat in itself. And after all that, she'd helped Leon again, this time shutting down another T/G-Virus plot by WilPharma/Umbrella employee Frederic Downing before it even began. He couldn't deny that she'd be a _massive_ help to him, Jill and Leon.

"Come on, you two. You can catch up in the intel tent. Claire, Jill will fill you in on the situation here. I'll go get us some coffee." Leon said, ushering them towards the intel tent. He hurried off to grab Jill and said coffee.

"Chris, black with 2; Jill, black with 1, Claire, white with one; and mine, white with none." Leon said, handing the coffees around as he announced them

"How'd you know?" Chris asked, blowing the steam from the coffee.

"I'm great." Leon grinned.

"I told him." Jill said, slurping her coffee quietly.

"Yeah...well, anyway..." Leon began.

Jill proceeded to inform Claire of the situation while Chris and Leon looked through the results that had come back from the CT scans of the victims. What Leon saw made him shudder and spill his coffee.

"I don't believe it...not again..." he muttered. "...I killed that thing..._you_ killed that thing. It should be _DEAD_!"

"I don't get it, what is this?" Chris asked, genuinely not knowing.

"This is what Las Plagas looks like inside the body. This is what I had in _me_ when I was saving Ashley, only this is slightly different. But the only specimen to survive ended up with Wesker. And I thought you and Jill took care of all that. Tricell's supposed to be finished!"

"Well, not exactly. They lost a lot of money and reputation, but they regained it over the last couple of years by doing lots of nice, charitable corporate things. We all thought they'd changed into what a good pharmaceutical corporation _should_ be like. But if that's Las Plagas, then they must have been doing something else all the while. Tricell _were_ the only ones who had a sample of it."

"But the bites and scratches? That's not a plaga trait. That's a T-Virus trait." Jill said, having walked over after finishing updating Claire.

"Yeah, you're right..." Leon said, studying the results more closely. "But that's definitely a Plaga parasite. No doubt about it."

"So what does it all mean?" Claire asked.

Chris took a step backwards, looking horrified as a realisation dawned on him.

"That we might be dealing with a cross between the T-Virus and Las Plagas." He said.

Jill shook her head vigorously. "No way." She said adamantly. "These people, they're normal. You saw it yourself." She said to Chris. "They don't look _or_ act like any zombie or majini that I ever saw."

"Yeah, that's what getting to me. But this is proof. A normal person doesn't have a parasite hooked up to them from the inside. A normal person doesn't bite or scratch someone and put them in hospital." Chris said, visibly shaken. It took a lot to crack someone as tough and experienced as Chris, but he almost looked _scared_.

"So why hasn't anyone shown any sign of infection? They can't be able to _control_ their mutations, right? I mean, the plaga parasite takes over so quick, and they're so much more aggressive than normal people. This just doesn't make sense." Jill said, getting frustrated at the lack of a clear answer.

The 4 of them looked at each other, not knowing what to say to one another. What _was_ clear was that they were going to have to find out just what was going on. And without knowing where or when an attack was going to take place, and without any knowledge of what to expect, this was going to be bloody hard.

* * *

Leon heard the scream _after_ the gunshots, and bolted to the eastern exit of the compound. He was unarmed, due to the safety of the compound not requiring him to be. He arrived to find the gate open, and a soldier on the ground with his uniform torn down his chest. His gun was a few feet away from him, and he was scampering backwards as fast as he could, making panicked grunting noises as he fled. He was dripping blood from his chest, leaking as he scampered, and his jaw was puffed and bruised. He saw Leon, and quickly got up and grabbed him by the arm.

"Agent Kennedy! You gotta help me! This guy, he's nuts! He fucking scratched me! LOOK!" It was Lieutenant Vickers. "He hit me right in the face, too!" The lieutenant hid behind Leon.

Leon looked back towards where Vickers had come from, and noticed a man dressed in regular civilian clothing walking slowly towards the rifle. He picked it up and seemed to be inspecting it.

"Oh shit! GET OUT OF HERE! HE'S GOT MY GUN!" Vickers yelled, and turned to run.

"Un forastero!" The man yelled, pointing at Vickers and Leon. He then aimed the gun at Vickers.

Leon's eyes went wide with surprise as he watched the man handling the gun. He quickly darted forward, sliding as he got near the man. He swept the man's feet out from under him, and he hit the ground with a thud. Leon knocked the gun away from the man, and assumed a defensive stance. There was something about the man that was very familiar. _Un forastero?_ He thought to himself. _I've heard that before_. The man got up, grunting. He rushed at Leon, screaming as he charged. Leon ducked the blow and hit him hard in the guts, sending the man reeling backwards.

"Kennedy, use this!" Vickers threw a large hunting knife to Leon, which landed at Leon's feet. He picked it up and brandished it at the crazy man.

"Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!" Leon yelled. The man just snarled and kept walking towards him.

"Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!" Leon repeated. "If you refuse to do this, I'll use force!"

"Shit." Vickers muttered, cursing Leon's use of protocol.

The man just kept walking towards Leon and drew back his fist, ready to king-hit him. Leon side-stepped the man and hit him on the back of the neck as hard as he could. The man crumpled and doubled over, snarling viciously. He recovered and drew back his fist again, and Leon quickly swiped him across the chest with the knife. The man screamed and his eyes went large and bloodshot. He charged Leon again, arms raised in order to grab him. Leon ducked and grabbed the man from behind in a headlock. Feeling disappointed and saddened, but dutiful, he drew the knife quickly and deeply across the man's throat. The man fell instantly, and landed on his back as Leon let him go.

"That was close, sir." Vickers let out a big sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"I'm not sure this is over yet." Leon said. Vickers looked down, and the man was squirming on the ground instead of dying.

Just then, Claire, Chris and Jill came running up.

"What's going on here?" Jill demanded. "Leon?"

"Watch." Leon said.

The man was convulsing and squirming on the ground, clutching at his throat. Leon had cut into it very deep, something he was taught when he joined secret service: strike to kill, not to wound. This was turning out to be a bad idea though, and Leon knew what was going to come next.

"Vickers! Get clear!" Chris yelled, running towards the Lieutenant and motioning desperately with his arm for him to move away from the man on the ground. Jill ran around the scene and shut the gate to the compound. Just as she shut it and it clicked into place, the man convulsed violently and lurched upwards. A large, fleshy worm-like creature sprouted from his neck. Only this worm was somewhat spiky, about two metres long and about twenty centimetres wide, and it was squirming everywhere.

"What the fuck is that? That's not the plaga I was expecting!" Leon cried, backing away.

"Move away, Leon." Chris said, drawing a custom SIG-Sauer P226 handgun. He quickly unloaded 4 shots into the Plaga at its base, making it snap off when it squirmed. The man stopped moving altogether, apparently dead.

"It's ok guys, this one's not getting back up." Chris said, holstering his gun.

"Thanks, Chris. I owe you one." Leon said, relieved.

"I'll remember that. So where's your gun? Don't they teach you to be armed in the secret service?" Chris joked.

"How can you joke at a time like this?" Claire demanded. "Did you see that thing?"

"I saw it. But I think we know what we're dealing with now. At least on the surface." Chris answered.

"Yeah, this guy acted just like the Ganado I dealt with in Spain. Only he was a lot tougher. I hit him 3 times, really hard, and cut him twice."

"That's gotta be the T-Virus at work. So it IS what we thought. This isn't good." Jill said, shaking her head.

"So? Where is it?" Chris asked Leon.

"I left it in the Intel tent. I didn't think I'd need it in here. I was on the other side of the compound when I heard Vickers screaming."

"Vickers." Chris snarled, still disgusted every time he heard that name. "I thought you were in charge of keeping the gate SHUT."

"I was. I mean I am!" Vickers said defensively.

"Tell us what happened. NOW!" Chris yelled. Jill came up and stood next to Chris, arms folded, waiting for a response from the shaken soldier.

"Well, this guy came up to the fence, demanding to know what we were doing about the situation in the town. I said that he should go back home, and that we were dealing with the problem. He got angry, and demanded that we go and investigate immediately. I told him to go home, and said that he was preventing the situation from getting any better by standing around the gate like a dickhead." Vickers explained.

Claire glared at Vickers, disgusted. "You insulted him? How did you ever manage to get to Lieutenant? What's wrong with you?"

"Hey, girly. You're not even supposed to be here!. So don't you go spraying your crap at me like you're of some sort of importance." Vickers said angrily, raising his voice and his fist at Claire.

Leon was quietly observing the whole thing, and was the first to see Vickers raising his fist. He grabbed his arm, twisting it around his back. Vickers screamed in pain, thrashing around, trying to get free.

"Let go of me, Kennedy!" he yelled.

"Calm down, Lieutenant. Just calm down! Threatening Claire isn't helping your situation." Leon said.

"I'll calm down when you get your filthy government hands off of me! ARRRHHH!!" Just then, Vickers twisted around in an amazing feat of strength. Leon knew instantly that this was out of character, because just moments ago Vickers was hiding behind him, scared of a regular man. A plaga-infected regular man, but he didn't know that.

"What the-" Leon backed away quickly.

Vickers snarled and turned to face him, saliva dripping from his chin, eyes bloodshot. He looked like an animal. Leon landed a hook-punch straight in Vickers' jaw, but Vickers just turned his head back around and charged him.

_BAM! BAM BAM!_

Vickers fell straight to the ground with 3 large holes in his neck. Leon quickly checked for a pulse, found none, and got up.

"Nice gun." He said to Chris. "So he was infected, too."

"Looks like it. I wonder how he just transformed like that, though? One minute, he's a regular army guy. A highly arrogant, moronic, cowardly army guy. The next, he's infected. I saw the scratch on his chest, but nothing works that fast. Not even the T-Virus." Jill said.

"I have an idea." Claire turned from the scene of what just transpired and faced the growing crowd of BSAA, police and military personnel who were gathering to see what on earth was going on.

"Has anyone here sustained any injuries from the townspeople? A scratch, a bite, a cut, anything?" She asked, voice raised so everyone could hear her.

Nobody responded, so she rephrased the question.

"Has anyone had any contact with any of the townspeople at all? Shaking hands? Anything like that?"

"I did." A BSAA intelligence officer came out from the crowd. "I shook a guy's hand after I asked him a few questions. But that's all I did." He looked nervous, and people were beginning to back away from him.

"Come here, let me see your hands." Claire said, taking the man's hands and inspecting them carefully. She didn't notice any cuts or anything that could have constituted an infection.

"Hmm...nothing." she said, disappointed.

"What are you looking for?" Jill asked her.

"I was just checking to see if he could have come into contact with an infected person's body fluid. Best if we know exactly what's going on here, so we don't have another incident like this one." She answered.

"Nice work! I wouldn't have thought of that." Leon said, admiring her clear-headedness.

"Thanks!" She looked pleased. She turned around to face the crowd again. "OK that's all, people."

The crowd returned to their posts, except for a few military guys who sorted out a cleanup of the scene.

"Lock down all the gates, and double the watch. I don't want this happening again." Leon ordered to another Lieutenant who was supervising the imminent clean-up.

"Yes, sir." The lieutenant answered, stiffly saluting before delegating his new orders.

"Let's regroup back at the intel tent, and work out what our first move is. Standing out here isn't going to improve anything." Chris said, walking back towards the tent.

* * *

The first thing Leon did when he walked into the tent was pick up his gun: a .50 calibre customised "Lightning Hawk" model Desert Eagle. He'd learned to bring big guns and lots of ammo everywhere he went on missions, especially if they involved any kind of bioweapon; be it zombie or B.O.W. He also carried a heavily customised .40 calibre Heckler & Koch USP handgun, owing to the fact that you can never bring enough ammo with you. And if you find any along the way, it's probably not going to be .50 calibre magnum bullets. He holstered both guns.

"OK Leon, Claire. This is the plan. Jill and I came up with it just before you got here, and we're making it up a little as we go along, due to the fact that we didn't know you would both be here, and the situation has changed a little since we made it." Chris began. "The power plant on the northern border of the town has two entrances: one on the south side facing the town, and one on the east side. The south entrance is the main entrance used by employees and administration staff. The east entrance is a loading bay for materials and provisions, etcetera. I was going to take the south entrance and Jill was going to take the east, but since you're both here and things are looking far more dangerous than we initially thought, I think it's best that we go in groups of two."

"Agreed." Leon stated.

"We'll take the east entrance." Claire said, leaning closer to Leon in her chair. Leon looked around at her when he felt her shoulder rubbing against his.

"Oh, and I'm going with Claire." Leon said, a smirk on his face as he looked around at Claire again.

"Like you had a choice." She giggled, then turned serious. "It'll be like old times." She choked up a bit when the reality of the situation hit her. They were going into a creepy, unknown place. They were going to be attacked by creepy, unknown zombies. Again. The horror of what transpired 13 years ago smacked her in the face so hard she could barely breathe. She started sobbing, wiping the tears away with her hand.

"Sorry, guys. I didn't mean to break down like that." She apologised.

"Claire, if it's going to be too much for you, maybe you should-" Chris started.

"No way." Claire interrupted, suddenly angry at him. "There's no way I'm staying out of this. Someone's making these people like this, and laughing all the way to the bank. I swore I'd do everything I could to help people out in situations like these. And I'm _definitely _not leaving Leon on his own. I can handle myself, Chris. I don't need your protection all the time. I'm thirty-one years old, for god's sake."

Chris looked at his hands dumbly, feeling totally shit for saying such a stupid thing to her. This was Claire Redfield he was talking about. Forget that she was his little sister, she was a veteran of wars that most people couldn't even imagine in their most horrific nightmares, and she'd come out on top every time.

"Sorry...I didn't mean for it to sound like you don't know what you're doing, I'm just-"

"It's OK. I didn't mean to yell. I know you're worried about me, but I came here to do this. It's just a horrible thing to have to do at all. Forget about it, we have more important things to do right now. Come on, let's go get armed." A smile came back to Claire's face, and Chris felt better already.

"Right this way." He said, and led them into the tent across the path from them.

They walked in, grabbing belts and weapons as they thought they might need them, trying to fit as much on their person as they possibly could without bulking themselves up too much to move quickly. Chris already had his favourite new handgun. He grabbed a combat knife and two belts - one shoulder-slung to carry the knife and a larger gun on his back, and another around his waist to carry extra ammo clips – as well as a bulletproof vest. The others all grabbed the same, but with different guns. Jill took a Samurai Edge Beretta, growing quite fond of it over the years, and an Ithaca 37 shotgun. Claire also took a Samurai Edge, but not being as confident in her arms use as the others, she didn't take another different one. Instead, she just took two Berettas. She looked to Chris for confirmation that it was OK to take them both, and he nodded approvingly. Leon already had his magnum and his H&K handgun, so he just stood there waiting for the others to decide.

"Everyone good?" Jill asked. Leon and Claire nodded, so she continued. "Both of you take a side-pack. You can put extra clips in there, so you don't run out of ammo."

They each took a side-pack, filling it with their required ammo, and stepped out of the tent. Chris led them to a military truck, complete with rear-mounted machine guns, and ushered them in. He told the driver to drop them at the power plant, and they drove out the gates of the compound.

"Don't forget to use your radios if you discover anything, and remember not to shoot anyone who isn't outwardly infected. We don't want civilian casualties. I know it's hard to know who's infected around here, but we'll just have to be careful." Leon announced to the others as they drove along. "At this stage we're only looking for any evidence that the power plant had something to do with the first attacks. We'll synchronise time when we get there, and report back at the south entrance after an hour. Clear?"

"Clear." They all responded.

"Quite the leader now, aren't we?" Claire teased.

"I'm just trying to prove myself to Chris 'The Man' Redfield over here." Leon said, smirking at him.

"You don't have to prove anything to me, Leon. We all went through the same deal back in Raccoon City, so we're all proven." He looked at Claire as he said that. "I'm obeying your orders because I respect you, as well as because you're my superior."

"Yeah. You're doing a great job so far, Leon." Jill smiled at him and placed a reassuring hand on his knee, giving it a friendly squeeze.

"Thanks guys." Leon said. He took out his PDA and pressed the call button. Hunnigan appeared on the display.

"Leon." She said, regarding him with a nod.

"Hunnigan. We're heading to the power plant on the northern border of the town. All the attackers of the initial incidents all work at the power plant, so we're looking for any sign that it had something to do with it."

"Great." She said, eternally expressionless. "Report back when you're done."

"Will do." He replied.

As the truck rolled on, the sun began to set on their left. Claire watched it, wondering if any parallels would be drawn between it and their lives. She shook the thought immediately and looked at Leon. He'd been through a lot, but he still looked young, despite his 34 years. One thing was bothering her though, and that was the language the infected man in the compound had spoken to him.

"Leon, what was it that you said the infected guy said to you before you dropped him?"

"_Un forastero_. It's Spanish for 'An outsider'. Why?"

"Well, this town is known for its Spanish speaking population, but it's strange that they would call you an outsider."

"Not really. When I was in Spain seven years ago, a lot of the infected villagers called me that. It just meant that I'm American, running through their Spanish villages. Out here, I guess it could mean that I'm not infected like them."

"I guess that makes sense...but what also doesn't make sense to me is how they're going from normal to infected all the time. I just can't figure out what's triggering it. The only thing I can come up with is that both the ones we saw were both angry right before they changed."

Chris snapped his head around and stared at Claire.

"I think you're onto something there. It could be triggered by an emotional response under the right circumstances. I mean, there wouldn't be much point having them all infected all the time. They might attack each other, or risk being too obvious. This way, they could maintain secrecy and not draw any attention, or drive attention away because of a lack of proof."

"In that case, we were very lucky to see what we did. And we'll have to be extra careful. This isn't confirmed intel, but it's a start. Don't be too presumptuous when we get there, it might not be true." Leon said.

Claire looked out the window of the truck again, sighing at the slowly fading light on the horizon.


	2. Power Plant

**Remnants**

**Chapter 2**

"Eighteen hundred and fifty-seven hours on my mark: three, two, one, mark." Chris said, and all four synchronised their timepieces simultaneously.

"Great, we'll meet back here at eight pm sharp, radio if anything comes up." Leon said, checking his weapons one last time. "Remember, we don't know what to expect in there. It could be all clear, but it could be a war-zone."

"Don't worry, boss." Jill said, slamming a clip into her Beretta. "We've done this before." She smiled, holstering her weapon.

"Yeah, I know. But that's why we need to be extra careful." Leon's tone sobered everybody.

Hands were shaken, good lucks were said, and then they split into their two groups and headed off on their respective paths. Jill and Chris disappeared into the power plant's south entrance – the main thoroughfare for employees and administration – while Leon and Claire headed for the east entrance. The power plant was huge; a massive stone building 4 stories tall and at least 200 metres wide on a side. The walk didn't take long, but it would be different when they entered the place. The hair on the back of Claire's neck stood on end, as she recalled the feelings she got when she first entered the dying remnants of Raccoon City thirteen years ago. She realised that she was getting the same feeling right now. She might have spent time around bio-organic weaponry before, but this situation was vastly different to anything she'd done in the past. For a start, the enemies she was likely to face here were more dangerous than the zombies she'd had to face before. They were smarter, they knew how to coordinate, and probably most dangerous of all, they were _fast_. She'd seen an example of it back in the BSAA compound not two hours ago.

"You alright?" Leon asked her, noting that she seemed a little distant.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She replied, not knowing exactly how to voice how she was feeling. "I'm just getting that Raccoon City feeling again. You know, everything feels dangerous, but you don't know exactly what to expect?"

"Oh yeah, I'm used to that by now."  
"So you haven't been completely hardened up by all your experience, then?" She smiled at Leon.

"No, I'm still human." He laughed. "With any luck, we'll ALL still be human after we're done here."

"I hope you're right." Claire said, returning her gaze to the ground in front of her.

They approached the loading dock – the east entrance – and noted it was slightly recessed into the ground, dropping about a metre. Leon led the way, walking towards a worker dressed in fluorescents. The worker turned as the two approached, and walked towards them.

"Sorry folks, no entry back here. You'll have to go around to the south entrance." He said, holding up a hand in a 'stop' gesture.

"We've already been there." Leon said, holding up his government ID. "So sorry to bother you, but we really need to take a look inside."

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that." The worker said, reaching around his back and pulling something from his belt. Claire automatically slid her hand down to the butt of one of her pistols, but she didn't draw it yet.

"I'm sorry, sir. But you really don't have a say in the matter. I need to go inside and look around, and I have the authority to do so. So if you'll kindly step out of the way, we can get going. The sooner we finish up, the sooner you can never see me again." Leon stated, staying perfectly calm.

"I'm sorry too." The worker said, raising his voice a little. "But I'm only going to say this one last time: turn around and go back where you came from, government-boy. There's nothing to see here. Don't make me hurt you. You can just walk away right now without any problem. Your choice."

Leon sighed loudly, about to draw his handgun when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that it was a stun rod that the worker had grabbed from his belt, and he was about to hit him with it. Leon ducked and grabbed the worker's wrist and punched him in the arm, making the worker drop the weapon. The worker roared something unintelligible, his face contorting with rage. His eyeballs swelled and went almost completely bloodshot, and he swung a big hook punch. Leon ducked again, and the punch flew past harmlessly.

"Leon! Get clear!" Claire yelled.

Leon rolled away to his right, and Claire pulled the trigger of her handgun twice. The worker fell to the ground, dead before he made contact with it. Just then, Leon's radio started hissing static.

"_Leon, do you read?"_ came Jill's voice.

Leon pressed the transmit button, and spoke clearly into the radio.

"I read you. What's up, Jill?"

"_The trigger for these people acting infected is definitely anger. We ran into trouble at the entrance; nobody seemed to want to let us in, and they all got angry. They all changed and attacked us, and we had to kill them. 5 dead, but we're fine. They're hiding something in here."_

"Yeah we just had some trouble too. Same as what you just said, but only one hostile. We've gotta secure the loading bay, then we'll head in."

"_Copy that. We'll stick to the lower levels if you two wanna go on up."_

"Will do. Good luck, guys. Out."

Claire pulled her other handgun out and nodded to Leon. They made their way to the edge of the loading bay, Leon hoisting himself up onto ground level then helping Claire up. They held their weapons ready, carefully edging around the entrance to the building. There was no one else in sight, but all the machinery was on. The place was loud, voices needed to be yelled to be heard. Claire spotted an elevator about twenty metres ahead of them, an industrial looking thing with a grated floor. The bay itself was just like any other loading bay at any other warehouse. There were tall shelves lining the room, stacked with boxes. Claire read some of the labels, but all that she could see was food and spare parts; nothing of interest. She approached the elevator, calling it down, but it didn't respond. She tried the button again, and again no luck.

"Shit, this thing's locked down." She turned and called to Leon.

"Is there a key-hole anywhere on the console?" he asked.

She looked around on the stainless-steel console and found a round-type key-hole on the front. She turned back around and nodded.

"Then the key has to be around here somewhere." Leon looked around for some type of office or something, a room of any sort where something like that might be stored. He saw it; a supervisor's station on the far side of the bay. The blinds inside were all drawn, and the lights looked to be off as well. They jogged over there, and Leon tried the door handle: locked, of course.

"Screw this." He mumbled, and kicked the door in. The door's frame wasn't very solid, and it splintered easily. The door itself swung open violently, bouncing off the wall loudly and returning partway. Leon entered slowly, leading with his handgun.

"Anyone in here?" He called to the darkness. He fumbled around the wall for a light switch, found it, and flipped it on. A single halogen light came on in the middle of the room, flooding it with searing white light.

"It stinks of sweat in here." Claire noted, screwing her nose up a bit.

They heard a sound on their left, like someone shifting subtly. Leon swung himself around and aimed the gun at the source of the noise.

"Who are you? You're not like them..." a scared voice said. It was a balding man wearing suit pants and a shirt. He looked a total mess, and he was cowering in a corner, wielding a letter opener in his left hand.

"What do you mean, 'not like them'?" Claire asked, not relenting her pistols yet.

"I mean, you're not infected like all the rest of them. You can help me out! There's at least one of them still out there, and I'm not moving until he's gone."

"We already took care of him. The rest of this loading bay is secure." Leon said.

"You mean it? So I can go? Thankyou!" the man was ecstatic, and stood up quickly. He dropped the letter opener and started to dash for the door when Leon stopped him.

"Not so fast. First we need some information." He said.

The man looked disappointed. "I suppose you did just bail me out of this. What do you wanna know?"

Leon looked back at Claire, holstering his gun, and Claire did the same.

"We need to know how many people in this place are infected, and what exactly is going on here."

The man began to look horrified, as if recalling the answers to those questions was the scariest thing he'd ever experienced. He opened his mouth, and slowly began to answer.

"Well, I'd say most of the people here are infected. Maybe two hundred of them."

"Most of them? My god..." Claire said, shocked.

"When you say 'most', how much is 'most'?" Leon asked.

"I'm the only one I've seen who isn't." The man replied.

"Shit." Leon mumbled, stroking his chin with his left hand in thought.

"But there's more." The man continued. "It's not just them. There's horrible beasts here as well. The whole place is overrun. They're still operating everything to keep it looking like its all fine, but everyone's infected."

"How did it happen?" Claire asked him, and the man stopped and looked at his feet.

"Well, I started hearing about all those attacks before I noticed it here. But before I knew it, people were arguing with me all the time, and then they got violent. I tried to take it to management, but they all attacked me too. I locked down the elevator and hid in here. But I haven't been able to get out for days because there was always someone outside."

"Have you got the key to elevator?" Leon asked. The man motioned to a draw in a desk by the opposite wall. Leon opened it and took the key.

"Great. Let's get going." He said to Claire.

The two of them turned to leave the office, but were stopped by the man.

"Wait! You can't just leave me here!" he pleaded, grabbing Claire by the vest as she was walking out.

"If you run out of here screaming and carrying on, you'll give away our position. Then we'll have hordes of those things all coming at us from every angle, and we'll be history. And if we're history, you'll have no chance." Leon said to him, taking his handgun out of its holster.

"So I'm supposed to just stay here until you get back?" the man yelled.

"If you want to live, yes." Claire said to him, turning her back to walk out the door.

"Wait! You listen to me, sweetheart-" the man started to say, and he tried to spin Claire around to face him, grabbing her right breast in the process. Claire let out a surprised squeal, and instinctively elbowed the man in the face. He dropped to the ground holding his jaw.

"Don't fucking touch me, you creep!" she yelled.

"I'm leaving right now, bitch. I've been here for days! _Days!_ Do you know what it's like to be stuck in here for this long? Then you finally clear the area and you won't let me leave? Just 'cause you're hot," the man said, looking up at Claire's boobs, then he turned to Leon, "and you have a fucking badge, doesn't mean I have to listen to you."

Leon grabbed the man by the collar and lifted him to his feet, his expression one of disgust.

"Stay here and wait for us to get back. If you even think about moving, we won't come back looking for you." He said angrily, and looked at Claire, who was readjusting her clothes and belts. He turned back to the man. "And don't touch her again."

He pushed the man against the wall of the little office and made his way toward the elevator, followed by Claire. He pulled out his radio and pressed the transmit button.

------------------------------------------------

"_Chris, do you read?"_ Came Leon's voice over the radio.

"Yeah, Chris here," he said, "go ahead."

"_It looks like we're dealing with mass-infected; humans and B.O.W.'s. The power plant is a shell for something. They're keeping it going to mask what's really going on here. As for its purpose, we don't know yet. It could be a staging ground for something bigger, or it could just be a test-bed. Either way, there's mass hostiles around, so watch yourselves."_

"Right, that's encouraging." Chris said, somehow not surprised.

"_One more thing. We found a survivor here in the loading bay. He's an asshole, but he's still an innocent civilian, so we're gonna grab him on the way out. We don't know what else to expect, so we left him there."_

"Roger. Thanks for the info, out." Chris said.

"Great news." Jill said sarcastically. "So it's gonna end up being one of those days after all."

"Looks like it." Chris said, returning the radio to his belt.

They were in a well-lit hallway, with offices to their left and right. There were three on either side, and they'd just exited the first one when Leon had called. There was nothing of interest in there anyway, just some files and regular office type stuff. They moved towards the second office, on their left, and Chris opened the door carefully, leading with his handgun.

"You!" came a snarling voice from behind the desk at the back of the office. A dirty looking man dressed in a suit pointed at them, then grabbed a lamp from his desk and stood up quickly. He screamed loudly, and Jill turned at the sound of several chairs sliding and several people standing up in other offices.

"I think we just woke the neighbours." She said.

The man leapt over the desk and started towards Chris. Chris aimed high and fired a shot into the man's head, which promptly exploded in shards of flying flesh and bone on impact. But the sound of the shot raised more attention from nearby. They heard heavy footsteps coming from outside the room, and turned to see at least half a dozen very angry looking men and women approaching; some carrying makeshift weapons, some not.

Chris ran out the door, facing them all. At least in the hallway, there was only so much room to move, and no way to be surrounded. He fired three shots towards the two at the front, the first two connecting with a shoulder and a head, making them stumble backwards into the line of semi-zombies behind them, the third shot went slightly overhead and went harmlessly into the roof. Chris took the opportunity and flew forwards, hitting the lead woman clear in the chest with a kick. This made the rest stumble, and he unloaded a shot into the lead woman's head. She died instantly, and Chris quickly reloaded his gun. Meanwhile, Jill hit three more downed enemies in the head with clean shots, and aimed and fired two more shots before also running out of ammo and needing to reload. Chris took aim at the remaining three people and efficiently took them out with as many bullets, flesh flying everywhere. The three fell instantly to the ground, and Jill let out a sigh of relief.

"That was close." She said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

"Too close. These ones are smarter than any zombies I've faced before. I don't know if I can even call them that."

Just as he finished his sentence, three of the zombies started to sit up, groaning in pained unison, filling the entire hallway with a creepy aura of unnaturalness.

"Fuck me, those were headshots! They should be dead by now!" Chris exclaimed, aiming his gun again.

Jill popped off 5 more rounds, 3 connecting cleanly with foreheads, two hitting arms. Chunks of flesh were blasted off as the bullets passed through, but two of them kept coming. Chris aimed carefully and fired off two more bullets, each hitting right between the eyes. The first one dropped instantly, this time surely dead. The second stumbled, and its chest began to start swelling. Chris heard a familiar cracking sound as a Plaga spewed forth from where the zombie's head had been. It swung around sightlessly, striking the walls of the corridor and spraying plaster everywhere. Chris shielded his eyes as Jill holstered her handgun, drawing her Ithaca twelve-gauge.

"Move!" She yelled, and Chris promptly ducked and rolled.

She fired a single shot into the base of the plaga, exploding it completely. Yellowish goo flew out from the zombie's neck, lining the already stained walls. She looked around to see if any more were coming, saw that there wasn't, and returned her shotgun to its place on her back.

"Let's see if any of these other offices have anything interesting in them." Chris said.

They checked out the rest of the offices, finding nothing of interest in any of them. They went round the corner to the right at the end of the corridor, finding two doors. One read "Human Resources", the other "Turbine Room". They looked at each other, Jill gesturing towards the Human Resources office. She carefully turned the knob and pushed the door open with the barrel of her pistol, edging her way into the room. It was dark, and she fumbled around looking for a light switch. She found one on her right on the door frame and switched it on. The room was a mess, documents were strewn everywhere all over the floor. Jill noticed a tray filled with printed documents labelled 'Recent', and picked up the top one. She started reading aloud.

"June 3, 2011. Dear Mr Caldwell, I am writing to inform you that all developments are proceeding as planned. The parasites have been administered to all base-level workers during their annual health check-ups. No adverse effects have occurred, and all are responding well to commands. They are to follow orders from yourself and the head manager. Any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to contact me. Yours faithfully, William Birkin."

"Birkin? That's not possible. Leon and Claire killed him before they escaped Raccoon City." Chris said.

"Then someone must be using his identity. What were they doing here?"

"I don't know, but we need to find out. Is there anything else in that tray?" Chris asked.

Jill sifted through the pile of letters and emails, but saw nothing of any relevance.

"No, it's all just regular operations crap. Nothing else concerning this."

_Why would this Caldwell guy leave something like that on top of the pile?_ Chris wondered silently.

"What about this 'head manager' mentioned in that email? Maybe we can find something out from him?" Chris thought out loud.

Jill moved the computer mouse, and was surprised to see that the PC was still on. She brought up a program on the desktop entitled 'Site Map – Orientation'. It flashed to life on the screen, and produced a map of the bottom floor of the facility. It had key points listed on the side, next to the map, as well as links to open maps of the other three floors. She looked through the list of points, but didn't see anything useful except for the one listed 'Turbine Room'. She quickly glanced through the maps of the other floors, looking for the head manager's office. They contained mostly more offices, some tea rooms, and what appeared to be the same Turbine Room on three levels. The fourth floor contained all the admin offices, and she found the last one on a long corridor labelled 'Head Manager'.

"Got it." She said, closing down the program. "It's on the top floor. Leon and Claire will be able to get there quicker, but there's also that Turbine Room we saw before. It's a big space, so there's probably something interesting in there. We should check it out."

"Agreed." Chris said. "Alright, let's go then."

They spent a couple of minutes reloading their guns and empty clips, then Jill unclipped her radio and called Leon.

"Leon, we found out that a parasite was administered to all the base-level workers in the whole place. We found some office-types as well, and they were all infected too. I'm guessing everyone around here's gone to shit. We also found out that the HR manager, a guy named Caldwell, knew about it, as did the Head Manager. No name's listed for the guy, but his office is at the end of the main corridor on the top floor. Access is from a lift on the east wall. We're going to check out the big turbine room."

"_Roger that. Be careful in that Turbine Room, Claire and I heard some pretty strange stuff going on in there. Screaming, sounded like some sort of animal. Obviously a B.O.W. of some description."_

"OK, copy that. Be careful, Leon."

"_You too, out."_

Chris and Jill walked out of the HR office and very cautiously opened the door to the Turbine Room.

-----------------------------------------------

The lift doors opened and Claire held her gun at the ready. When nothing disgusting tried to kill her, she moved out. She looked around and took everything in: there was a reception desk straight ahead of her complete with computers and glass windows, and a long corridor lined with offices to her left.

"It's supposed to be the last one at the very end of this corridor, right?" She asked Leon without turning around.

"That's what Jill said."

They walked down the corridor, Claire watching the left, Leon the right. Suddenly Claire stopped, breathing in a shocked gulp of air. She aimed her pistols high.

"Did you hear that?" She asked.

"Hear what?"

_Thump thump._

This time he _did_ hear it, and aimed his gun towards the ceiling as well. The thumps continued, like careful footsteps in the ventilation system above their heads. They looked up for what seemed like ten minutes, when in actual fact it was only a few seconds. Nothing came crashing down on top of them, and the sounds disappeared. Claire turned to Leon, who simply shrugged. They kept walking.

They had rounded the first corner in the corridor, past half a dozen large offices. They all had names printed on the doors, but none of them was labelled 'Head Manager'. There appeared to be at least ten more offices along the way, with one at the end of the hall. Claire couldn't read the sign on the door from where she was, but she was certain that it was the one they were looking for. They made it five more steps before they saw the plaster above their heads crack, dust spewing out everywhere. A large, dark-green shape at least five feet tall dropped out and landed in front of them. It resembled a giant frog, but with matted, bloody fur in patches all over its body, and steel-like claws protruding from its front two feet. It let out an ear-piercing wail as it reared back on its hind legs.

"What the hell _is_ that thing?" Claire cried, aiming her pistols.

"I don't know, but I think we should kill it." Leon said. "Be careful, there's not a lot of room to manoeuvre in here."

The frog-thing let out another quick scream before leaping at them, claws extended. It would have impaled them both, had Leon not fired his magnum, hitting it square in the middle of its amphibian head. It was sent flying backwards about ten feet, but quickly recovered and sprung back onto its feet. It screamed once more, a high pitched pig-like scream, and leapt at them again. Leon flattened himself against the wall of the corridor, and Claire ducked. The frog-thing was fast though, and seemed to figure out quickly that they had both dodged. It kicked its feet behind it as it sailed over Claire's head, knocking her face-first into the carpet. She hit the ground hard, letting out a pained cry and dropping both her guns. Leon was okay though, and fired 3 rounds from his magnum as fast as he could. All three connected, and the creature was sent sprawling backwards, crashing part-way through a wall in the process. Dark, thick blood sprayed from the bullet holes, decorating the corridor with a gloomy splatter that stuck to the walls and didn't run. The creature got back up though, and leapt lightning-fast straight into Leon, knocking him over. It leapt again, placing itself just in front of where Claire had landed. She still hadn't gotten up, and her guns were still sprawled a few feet from her. The creature raised its front claws into the air, preparing to stab Claire as she lay unconscious on the ground. Leon yelled a loud "NO!" and bolted at it, finishing in a high fly-kick that connected with what passed as the creature's forehead. It staggered back a few paces, but was otherwise unhurt.

_What kind of creature can take four magnum shots and a fly kick and still be perfectly fine?_

Leon desperately searched the creature's body for any kind of weak spot, never taking his aim away from it. He spotted it just as the frog-thing prepared to leap again. It was a semi-exposed organ of some kind, only an inch in diameter, situated halfway up the creature's left side.

_Too easy, it's just like the Tyrants._

He pointed the magnum at the spot and fired, but the creature was too fast. It spun away and took the bullet in the chest, which only made it stumble backwards again. But this time it fell over, landing on its right side.

_That's it._ Leon thought to himself as he sprinted towards it. It began to recover, rolling onto its back. Leon took aim and fired at the spot, missing it and sending the creature a few feet further away. Frustrated, he realised that he only had one bullet left in the clip. He could reload the magnum quickly enough; it was a desert eagle after all. But it would still be precious milliseconds that left him open to attack. And with Claire out cold, he couldn't take that risk. No, he had to hit home with this shot. He aimed carefully at the orange spot on the frog-thing's side, and squeezed the trigger. It hit the spot, exploding a huge chunk of flesh out of its side. It collapsed on the ground with a loud thud, and Leon quickly reloaded his gun in case it decided it wanted more. It didn't move though, so he ran over to Claire and tried to rouse her.

"Claire! Hey, Claire, wake up!" he gently shook her by the shoulders, and she let out a pained groan as she opened her eyes.

"That really hurt." She mumbled, rubbing her head.

"You took a really nasty bump, but you should be fine." Leon knelt next to her with his arm around her shoulders, helping support her weight until she re-oriented herself. She looked him in the eyes, then turned to see the creature on the ground missing most of its chest.

"Wow, I wish I'd brought a magnum with me." She said, impressed.

Leon smiled and helped her to her feet. She stood slowly, her hands on his shoulders.

"I'm okay." She looked him in the eyes, feeling herself draw slightly closer to him. His hands were around her waist. Before anything more awkward could happen, he moved his hands up to the small of her back and drew her in for a hug.

"That was a close call, but I'm glad you're okay." He said, feeling slightly unprofessional.

"Yeah." Claire rested her head on his shoulder, feeling a little dumb and girly. Nothing like this had really ever happened before between them, and she didn't understand what had changed. In any case, this wasn't the time or the place to be discussing something like that.

"Come on, let's get to that office." She said, pulling away from him and retrieving her handguns.

--------------------------------------------

"That's probably the source of the noise Leon told us about." Jill said, pointing up at the three-storey high roof.

"It looks like it was once a frog...or a bear _and_ a frog. So whoever's in charge of this new virus is doing experiments with it just like Umbrella did. That's not good at all." Chris reached for his radio to inform Leon, before the giant frog-bear decided to wake up.

"Leon, it's Chris. We spotted your noisy B.O.W. It looks kinda like a five or six foot frog crossed with a bear."

"_We just eliminated one of those."_ Came the reply from Leon.

"Weak spots?" Chris asked.

"_A small exposed organ on its left side, about halfway between shoulder and hip. Careful with your aim though, a mishit will barely scratch it, even with a magnum."_

"Got it. Thanks." Chris wished he'd brought a damn magnum with him. His handgun was nice, perfect for taking out zombies, but it wouldn't do so well against a big B.O.W. like the frog-bear. Actually, a rocket launcher would be better. But wishing wasn't going to change a thing. The ugly, clawed..._thing_...would still be there. He still had plenty of ammo left, despite going through more than he thought he would. Jill, on the other hand, was starting to run short of handgun bullets. She'd only brought three clips with her, and she'd already used up two. The rest of her inventory was made up of shells for the twelve-gauge, which wasn't going to do much good against a foe that could take multiple stray magnum blasts without any effect.

"I think I'll hang back and shoot from a distance." Jill said, noticing her lack of ammo.

"Here," Chris passed her a handful of 9mm bullets, "take these."

"Thanks." She quickly pulled out an empty clip and loaded it up: thirteen bullets. That meant she had twenty-eight shots in the handgun left in total.

Chris waited patiently for her to finish, then started walking towards a spot directly underneath the frog-bear creature. He took in his surroundings; all turbines and coal-fires. Nothing pointy he could use to his advantage, and nothing that looked like it could squish the creature either. The doors to the coal fires were also way too small to be able to force it in.

_Damn, this is going to be tricky. At least there's no plaga-infected idiots around._

Just as he thought this, about a dozen-and-a-half plaga-infected idiots came racing out a door on the opposite side of the huge room.

_Fucking hell, _he thought, then said it out loud.

"You said it...alright, I'll take the many, you take the big guy." Jill said, drawing her shotgun.

She raced off across the floor of the room, taking up a position behind a big turbine. Chris wasted no time, sensing that the first shot she fired would probably spur the big creature into action anyway. No point waiting 'till the zombies were right on top of them both. He aimed as carefully as he could, sighting the orange spot on the beast's side, which was little more than a bright fleck at this distance. Even if he hit, it wouldn't do _that_ much damage, being so far away. But better to get its attention by hurting it than any other way. He pulled the trigger on his P226, and the bullet went sailing away, straight into the semi-exposed organ. He started celebrating inwardly, never thinking that he'd actually hit the bloody thing. But he knew better than to get carried away.

Meanwhile, Jill had blasted about half the group of infected, and was reloading her shotgun. One of them recovered quicker than the others, and firmly slapped the gun out of Jill's hands. Jill let out a distressed wail, thinking about her options as she recovered from her surprise. She'd managed to reload the gun before the zombie knocked it away, but that was all a moot point. She counted at least ten, probably thirteen or fourteen more infected people, and all she had was her handgun. She bit her lip and started firing at heads, but they just kept moving forward.

_Damn,_ she thought, and bolted. The zombie picked up the shotgun just as Jill ran back to her initial stand behind a turbine. She heard the massive blast of it being fired, and covered her ears at the sound of the fragments bouncing off machinery near her head. She swore inwardly, then ran back to where Chris was shooting the frog-bear thing.

"Chris! They took the shotty! We're in deep shit!" She yelled as she ran.

"As if things could get any worse!" He yelled back before shooting the creature in the weak spot for the fourth time.

The zombies began to approach, gathering around the creature for protection as well as support. The one with the shotgun stayed at the front, taking aim. Jill and Chris were standing beside each other, no obvious cover in any direction. The creature let out a huge, ear-piercing scream, drawing back its left claw and swiping at them both. They lunged to the side, avoiding the claws. The one with the shotgun let out a frustrated roar as it missed it's shot, taking aim again. He fired, Jill and Chris narrowly avoiding the blast with another lunge. Unfortunately, Chris had tumbled in the wrong direction, straight at the creature. He looked up, realising where he was, and his eyes went wide with fright as the creature swiped again. He was too close for the claws to get him, but he still got sent flying backward by the power of the creature's strike. Jill ran in towards it while it was regaining its composure and whipped her knife out, stabbing it as hard as she could in its exposed side-organ. The creature let out a massive pained wail, flailing around and striking the group of infected, knocking them all backwards. The shotgun also dropped, and Jill couldn't believe her luck. She picked it up and saw that it still had 3 shots left. The creature stopped flailing, and just looked angry.

_Leon wasn't kidding. I just stabbed the fucking thing right in its weak spot, and all that did was make it mad._

The zombies started to get up now, picking up what weapons they'd dropped when they were knocked over. The entire group of enemies moved towards her, and Jill fired blindly, not having time to aim. The frog-thing spun slightly at the force of the blast, the rest of the zombies being knocked back, one losing its head. That left eleven zombies and one insanely powerful creature. The rest of the zombies recovered and stayed behind the creature this time, obviously working out that getting too close to it meant risking being hit by hit. Jill fired off one more round, this time aiming in the general direction of the weak spot. This time, it seemed genuinely sore.

Meanwhile, Chris had picked himself up and relocated his pistol. He saw Jill rush in towards the creature, so he rushed in too. He had a feeling he knew what she was up to. They ran right up to it, placing their guns right on the exposed organ before turning their heads to avoid the coming shrapnel. They pulled their triggers and were sent soaring backwards into one of the huge turbines when the organ exploded, shredding the creature's entire left side and spraying bits of flesh and thick, black blood all over them. The creature fell backwards, landing on six of the remaining zombies and killing them. Five more to go.

Jill quickly put her shotgun back to its place behind her shoulder and drew her handgun. Together, they took cover behind the fallen beast and emptied their guns into the remaining infected workers' skulls. All of them fell, and the room suddenly seemed eerily quiet, but for the sound of the turbines and coal ovens working in the background.

"Jesus..." Jill said, panting.

"I thought it'd never die." Chris said, hands on his knees, fighting to catch his breath.

The two of them slumped onto the ground, resting against each other's backs. When she'd caught her breath, Jill checked her watch: 19:52. She showed Chris, and he picked up his radio.

"Claire, come in." He said, still a little out of breath.

His call met only silence.

"Claire, come in! Do you read me?" He said, raising his voice a little in frustration.

Still nothing.

"Fuck!" he yelled. "I hope nothing's happened to them."

"_Chris, I'm here."_ Came the static-filled reply moments later.

"Claire!" he let out a big, relieved sigh, then composed himself. "Have you found anything? We almost got annihilated down here, but we're relatively unhurt."

"_We're just about to exit the Head Manager's office now." _She said, her sweet-sounding voice seeming very rough over the static. _"Found some very interesting stuff in here, I'll show you once we get back to the compound. We're leaving right now."_

"Copy that, see you on the outside."

The two BSAA agents quickly reloaded their weapons with what ammo they had left. Jill was onto the last of her shotgun shells, the last six filling it. She only had the one almost-clip of handgun bullets left to augment it. Chris had two entire clips left, along with 5 bullets still in his current clip. He unloaded it and put one of the fresh ones in.

"Let's move." He said, and they jogged across the massive room towards a door conveniently labelled 'Exit'.

-----------------------------------------------

Leon and Claire reached the south entrance ahead of the others, and took up watch at the door. The room was a kind of lobby. It had a big double sliding glass door as the main entrance, with half a dozen steps leading down into the car park out the front. There were dozens of cars still parked there - probably belonging to the infected workers, Claire surmised – along with the truck they'd used to get here. But the driver was nowhere to be found.

"Sergeant, do you read?" Claire called on her radio. "Sergeant, are you there?" She yelled louder the second time, her voice being echoed outside by something.

She looked to the truck, and noticed the sergeant's radio just poking out from behind the front-left wheel of the truck.

"Shit, the zombies must have gotten to him." Leon said.

Just as he finished speaking, he heard footsteps from around the corner. They were moving fast, whoever they were. Chris Redfield skidded around the corner and spotted Leon and Claire keeping watch at the entrance.

"Go! Go!" he yelled, gesturing wildly, sprinting towards them.

Jill wasn't far behind.

"There's gotta be fifty of them! Come on! Move, move, _MOVE_!!" she yelled.

All four of them bolted out the exit, Leon and Claire looking back to see what they were running from. They stared in wide-eyed horror as no less than forty, possibly fifty or sixty, infected workers came dashing after them. The ones in front were holding machine guns.

"Scatter your running!" Chris yelled, and they all ran in a zigzag pattern towards the armoured truck, the machine guns bullets spraying around them and missing everything. They dived into the truck, Jill in the driver's seat with Leon as the passenger. Leon noticed the body of the ex-driver just outside his door as he jumped in. He'd been mauled to death by several of the zombies, and there was litres and litres of blood around his battered corpse.

"Keep your head down, Leon!" Jill yelled. "Chris, Claire, get on those guns!"

Chris and Claire were already standing, aiming the mounted machine guns towards the group, and fired. Thousands of huge calibre bullets went flying in a patterned arc around and through the group of infected, spraying piles of gore everywhere, taking the armed zombies down first. As Jill hammered the accelerator and sped the truck off expertly away from the godforsaken power plant, the two gunners managed to kill about two thirds of the infected before leaving it all behind, hopefully for good.

"Is everyone alright?" Leon asked to everybody, and nobody in particular.

They all mumbled their affirmatives. Nobody was seriously injured, which was amazing considering what they'd just been through. Chris had a sore shoulder from being slammed by the frog-thing, and Claire had a very sore skull from the same treatment, but otherwise they were in tip-top shape. The Redfields would recover quickly; a bump on the head or shoulder wasn't something that could slow them down for long, if at all.

Jill suddenly remembered that she was curious about Leon and Claire's big discovery.

"What did you find in that office?" She turned to Leon as she spoke, one eye still fixed on the road back to the compound.

Leon produced a handful of emails from his vest pocket, and started skimming through them. He took out his PDA and Hunnigan appeared on the display.

"_Leon, what have you got for me?"_ she said, expressionless as always.

"Listen to this, Hunnigan. I'm explaining it to Jill Valentine and the Redfields as well." He said, then turned away from the PDA to face the two Redfields in the back seat.

"Well, it turns out that the head manager, a guy named Harold Green, was having big problems with money. The power plant was starting to go broke since most people in the surrounding towns started using solar power. Someone from Tricell approached him about using power plant space to run some pharmaceutical tests, and he agreed. That was two years ago. Obviously Tricell have had some trouble in that time, and it took them a while to get going. Six months ago, they started taking over too much power plant real estate, and the head manager got pissed off. To silence him, they offered him twenty percent of whatever they made from selling B.O.W.'s to whoever would pay, along with some personal B.O.W.'s for protection. Those were the creatures we saw. Apparently, they started out as frogs infected with the T-virus, and then they fused the DNA with a plaga-infected grizzly bear. They call them 'Jumpers'. They're failed experiments, which is why they gave them to Green.

"Harold got a little carried away when he saw the Jumpers, so he told Tricell to go ahead and infect the entire working population of the power plant, in return for an extra five percent in sales. Tricell saw this as a perfect opportunity, and knew that before long the whole town would be infected. They decided to use the whole place as a testing ground for their biological experiments, while keeping a facade in place so it appeared that nothing was wrong. That, combined with the infected humans' ability to change their outward appearance, and no one would suspect a thing..."

"...until the BSAA came along." Claire finished for him.

"That's right. Green went into hiding when you guys showed up." Leon gestured at Chris. "And he hasn't been seen since. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a file photo or anything to describe what he looks like, so we're in the dark. We also couldn't find any names of anyone that he's contacted from Tricell, so we're stuck there too."

"So there's no way to continue investigating this?" Jill exclaimed.

"_Actually, rumours have been popping up about a huge lab on the north-western outskirts of LA, about ten miles north-west of LAX. It's supposed to be in one of the national parks, but we don't know exactly where. We can't ascertain who owns it, but there's been a few sightings and little proof. Maybe you should check it out."_ Hunnigan said thoughtfully.

"Well first thing's first, Hunnigan. We gotta get back to the BSAA compound and regroup first, and get in contact with the BSAA HQ. Maybe they can help us by sending some troops to meet us there."

"_Sounds like a plan. Good work, Leon, contact me-...wh.........ba....."_ Static cut Hunnigan short before she could finish.

"Hunnigan! _Hunnigan!_" It was useless, the PDA's signal was completely lost.

Chris whipped out his radio and dialled the frequency in to the BSAA compound.

"Chris Redfield to compound one, come in compound one." He waited for a reply, but only static came through.

"Compound one, this is Chris Redfield. Come in!" Still nothing.

"My radio's out, too. Someone's cut off all communications in this area. We've only got short range comm." Leon said. "Looks like we'll have to wait till we're close enough to make the call."

Jill drove faster, fearing that something terrible had happened back at the compound while they were investigating. After ten more minutes, they saw the compound on the horizon. When they got closer, they saw that all the lights were off, and some of the tents were pulled down.

"Where's everyone gone?" Leon said to himself.

Jill pulled up the truck at the eastern gate, and stared in horror as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

"My god..." Claire said, putting a tentative hand to her lips as she spoke. "They're all infected. Every single one of them..."

Sure enough, the entire camp was overrun with infected soldiers, intelligence officers and the like. Along with that, they saw several shapes that resembled some kind of B.O.W.'s none of them had ever seen before. They weren't like the Jumpers they saw in the Power Plant. These things were crawling around, feasting on some of the bodies of BSAA personnel who hadn't become infected.

They heard a helicopter off in the distance, approaching from the south. Leon's radio began to crackle, and a static-filled voice tried to come through.

"_Leon...re.....Can.....me?.....there? Leon, can.....read me?....you there?"_ It was a woman's voice.

"Amy?" Leon asked, recognising the voice as one that belonged to the pilot who had dropped him off at the BSAA compound in the first place.

"_Leon! What's....current location?"_ Amy replied, still struggling to get a clear transmission through.

"We're outside the eastern gate of the compound. Hurry! There's B.O.W.'s and infected people swarming the place, they'll be onto us any moment if you don't move fast!" Leon urged desperately.

"_No problem.....be there....few moments."_

Chris and Claire jumped back onto the machine guns and aimed them at the compound, hoping to slow down anything that approached before the chopper could land. Jill and Leon waved frantically, jumping up and down, doing anything that would attract Amy's attention. Suddenly, the machine guns opened fire, not quite having the desired effect. The bullets were thick, and subsequently ripped the fence apart, giving the zombies a clear path to the truck. On top of that, Chris' gun ran out of bullets. Apparently, whoever last used it had forgotten to replace the ammo.

"Hurry up, Amy, we're in serious trouble here!" Leon yelled into his radio.

Claire continued to fire, but her reserve of bullets was running low as well. Jill, Chris and Leon took out their handguns and fired off as many rounds as they could into the approaching swarm of semi-dead as quickly as possible. There was far too many, though, and Jill ran out of ammo.

"Shit, I'm out too." Claire said, jumping off the truck and pulling out her two Berettas.

Just then, several of the crawling beasts jumped _over_ the pack of zombies and began making sick, gurgling, growling noises. They all noticed that the new beasts shared a likeness with the old Lickers.

"Damn." Chris said, again wishing he'd brought a magnum with him. "I hate Lickers."

Leon drew his magnum, one clip of seven remaining. He fired off five rounds, knocking down two of the Licker-like creatures. There was still one more though, and it was sprinting on all fours towards Jill, who'd been firing uselessly at it with the shotgun. It didn't even look like it had taken any damage.

"Shit!" She yelled, running out of shells. "I've got nothing now!"

Leon fired off his last two magnum rounds, hitting the beast right in the head with each shot. It fell to the ground dead, but a tide of infected just as quickly swarmed over the corpses.

The chopper was hovering just behind them, and Chris yelled for them to get in. They watched the mass of infected disperse at the lack of anyone to fight, and Claire noticed a balding man in a white shirt running towards the truck.

"Leon, look!" she cried, tugging Leon's shirt sleeve.

"That can't be...that guy we saw in the loading bay?" he exclaimed, squinting to try and get a better look. But it was dark, and they were gaining altitude.

"It looks an awful lot like him. We'll have to keep a lookout for him. I don't think he's quite as innocent as he made himself out to be."

"You guys alright?" Amy interrupted. "I was sent to try and find out what happened when HQ lost contact with you."

"Five seconds later, and we might have been screwed." Chris exhaled a big sigh of relief, collapsing into the chopper's bench-seat next to Jill.

"Yeah, thanks Amy. We owe you one." Claire flashed the pilot a smile as she settled in next to Leon.

"No problem..." Amy was a bit disappointed when she saw how close Claire was getting to Leon, but at the same time she was glad to have helped out at such a critical time.

_She's much more reliable than Chicken-heart Vickers, _Jill thought, _but this could get uglier than the mansion. She might just run away yet._

She hoped not, as she looked down at the ruins of the BSAA compound that had been their home for the past few days.


	3. Lab Facility 1

**Remnants**

Author's Note: I have to take a quick moment to thank my good friend Andrew Sharp for all the help he's given me with the plot of this story. It's not easy, and I definitely couldn't have been doing this on my own. Cheers, man.

**Chapter 3**

"Five minutes 'til we touch down, sir." Amy said through the headsets.

"Thanks." Leon said back.

They were heading back to the BSAA's California Headquarters to re-assess the situation and find out where they would be heading next. Now that they were in comm range, Chris decided to give HQ a call ahead.

"HQ, come in. This is Agent Chris Redfield."

"HQ here, what happened out there, Redfield?"

"The whole town's been infected with what looks like a cross between the T-Virus and the Plaga parasite. We checked out the power plant, and found out that Tricell were using it as a test bed for experiments. The head manager of the plant, a guy named Harold Green, was responsible for allowing Tricell to infect everyone, and by the time we got back to the compound it was in ruins. Everyone's either dead or infected except the four of us. We also found out from Leon's side that there's a huge lab somewhere outside of Los Angeles, possibly where Tricell are based out of. We'll fill you in on the small details when we touch down, we should be only five minutes away."

"Negative on the touch down, Chris. Hunnigan from DC called us a little while ago and informed us of everything you just said, minus the destroyed compound. Your new orders are to investigate this lab. You and Valentine are the best we have, and we can't waste another minute. If the infection can take out an entire town that quickly, then we don't have much time."

"But we just got out of there! We need supplies!" Jill said, not quite believing what she was hearing.

"We're sending someone in to re-supply you. You'll meet him when you hit the ground, we're sending coordinates to your pilot now. And you're to take Kennedy and his ground-side advisor with you. He's still technically in charge of the situation."

"You can't really be serious, we can't just head straight in there right now! We don't know enough, we need to regroup and re-assess! This is madness!" Chris raised his voice a little.

"Your orders are to investigate the lab, immediately. _We'll_ handle the research and keep you informed. No more questions, you two. Just get going. HQ out."

Chris and Jill looked at each other with shocked looks of disbelief.

"What was that all about?" Claire asked her brother.

"HQ is sending us straight in to check out this lab. We're supposed to meet up with someone from the BSAA when we touch down." Chris said, punching the chair in disgust.

"That sounds a little rough...we don't even know what we're looking for, let alone where to find it." Claire said.

"Yeah, I can't say I understand their motives here. It'd be much wiser to take a step back right now, not go in there with guns blazing, limited ammo, blindly looking for something." Leon said, leaning back in the chopper's bench, stroking his chin stubble thoughtfully. "Are Claire and I supposed to go with you?"

"Yeah, you're still in charge of the mission, and Claire's still your advisor." Jill replied.

Leon just continued stroking his chin. He heard a beep come from his PDA, and took it out of his pocket to check it out. The display read 'Incoming data. Accept?'. He touched the 'yes' button on the touch screen, and waited for the data to come through. It was a satellite scan of the area around where they presumed the lab to be.

"Hey, guys, check this out." Leon said, and the other three crowded around the PDA.

"Well, at least HQ is doing _something_." Chris droned.

The scan showed dense vegetation, with a small break in the trees that spanned about twenty metres. In the clearing, when Leon zoomed in, he spotted what looked like an entrance built into the ground.

"That's interesting. No wonder there isn't much proof, the whole thing looks like its underground." Leon noted.

"Yeah, and if it's underground, they're probably hiding something special. And that means defences." Jill said, remembering the Spencer Estate's crazy puzzles and defence mechanisms.

"I hope it's not like the damn mansion." Chris said.

"It won't be." Jill replied. "For one thing, Spencer was a fruit-loop. Secondly, he's dead. Thirdly, he didn't design this lab. I'd say our biggest problem will be booby traps, not puzzles."

"Booby traps, huh. That doesn't sound good." Claire said solemnly.

"Don't worry, Claire." Leon said with a smirk. "I won't let anything happen to your boobies."

Claire just went red, glaring at Leon. She turned to Chris.

"Chris, say something! You're supposed to be my big, over-protective brother!" She pleaded.

Chris looked at Leon, and opened his mouth to say something, but burst out laughing instead. Leon just sat back with his arms folded across his chest, looking pleased with himself. Claire turned away from him.

"Men." She mumbled.

Then she heard the chuckling through the headset. It was Amy.

"Not you too!"

The chopper streaked away at near top-speed as they passed over BSAA HQ, Jill looking down at it as they went by. Leon put his arm around Claire and pulled her closer.

"Sorry." He said to her.

Claire relaxed and rested her head on his shoulder.

"It's okay..." Claire let out a long sigh, closed her eyes and reached for Leon's other hand.

Jill looked at Chris with a smile on her face and her eyebrows raised.

"Watch it, Kennedy. That's my sister, you know." Chris grinned.

-------------------------------------------

The chopper set down about half a mile from the alleged lab. All four stepped out and faced their contact from the BSAA. He was armed with a standard BSAA issue 9mm Beretta, and carried a large pack. He was dressed in normal khakis; loose fitting trousers and black shirt, and a loose, unbuttoned khaki vest. He wasn't very tall - about five feet, eight inches – but he was a solidly built man, with close cropped black hair and a stylish beard. His face was an eternal frown, and he looked like he didn't enjoy anything.

"The name's Harman." He said, extending his hand to Leon.

"Leon S Kennedy, Secret Service" Leon replied, shaking his hand.

Harman turned his attention to the Redfields, next.

"You must be the famous Redfields."

"Chris. And this is my sister Claire." Chris told him.

"A pleasure to meet you both." Harman looked Claire up and down, clearly checking her out. He smiled as his gaze returned to her face. "You're a beautiful girl, Claire. It's a shame you have to go into this godforsaken shit-hole."

"Thanks...I guess." Claire said, confused and embarrassed.

Harman then noticed Jill.

"Well...look what HQ brought me this time." Harman began to check Jill out, a smug grin on his face. Jill folded her arms across her chest and tried to look as unattractive as possible. Chris was getting pissed off, though. He stepped into Harman's view and grabbed him by the throat.

"Get on with it, Harman. We didn't come here so Jill and my sister could make your dick hard. Waste any more time here and I'll rip it off. Understand?" He released Harman and stepped back.

"Right...I understand." Harman rubbed his neck and let out a cough. Jill smiled and looked at Claire, who was also pretty pleased.

_Too bad he understood, _Jill thought to herself, and her smile grew larger.

"The place is just a staircase and a doorway set into the ground, half a mile due north. Other than that, there's not much I can tell you. There were some pretty fucked up noises coming from inside, so be careful. The front door isn't well secured, in fact there's no security at all that I'm aware of. And to be able to hear anything from inside, the walls must be pretty thin. I don't like any of it, and I can't wait to get out of here."

"Command said you had supplies for us." Chris said, disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to smash the guy yet. He couldn't stand people like Harman.

"Yeah, it's all in this pack. You take what you need, and I'll keep the pack and take it back with me. I've got lots of nine-millimetre rounds, some twelve-gauge shells, magnum rounds...oh and I've got a change of clothes for all of you. Command said you'd probably want them after what you just went through." He looked at Claire's tiny shorts. "But it's a shame, if you ask me."

Chris took one step forward and hit Harman as hard as he could, right in the jaw. Harman grunted loudly and collapsed on the ground.

"Don't lie to me, Harman. You said you understood. I don't think you realise just how much I enjoy punching assholes like yourself, so don't do anything stupid 'cause it doesn't take much to provoke me."

Harman got up slowly, holding his face and cursing under his breath.

"Just take the fucking supplies so I can get out of here." He said, gesturing impatiently at the pack.

Jill emptied the pack, spilling the contents onto the ground. It was dark, so she had to take her flashlight out to see the contents. Harman picked up the empty pack and got into the chopper.

"Amy's armed, Harman. So don't even think about hitting on her." Leon grinned slyly as he said it, and Amy spun her Beretta around on a finger as the helicopter took off. Harman gulped.

Leon took the .50 magnum rounds, filling up his extra clip and putting the rest in a side pouch attached to his belt. Jill scooped up the shotgun shells and put them in her pouch, and noticed as she was doing it that the handgun bullets were wrong.

"Jesus, that idiot brought the wrong fucking bullets!" She cried, her face going very red very quickly. "These are point-four-oh rounds. Our guns are all Lugers! Great!"

"What are we supposed to do now? We haven't got enough ammo to go looking around a lab with potential for all sorts of creatures lurking around." Claire said, beginning to panic.

"So how much ammo have we all got, then?" Chris said, ejecting the mag from his SIG-Sauer P226. "I've got two full clips and one with five."

"I've only got thirteen." Jill said.

"I've got four full clips, but I've also got two guns." Claire said, holding the clips out in front of her.

Leon looked at them for a few seconds, thinking.

"You're gonna have to give Chris one bullet, and Jill twenty three. Then you'll all have the same amount of ammo." He said.

"But what about you?" Claire asked innocently.

Leon smiled smugly. "My USP is point-four-oh calibre. I think I'll be fine."

He filled up his current clip and four more, and put as many spare bullets in his pouch as he could fit.

"I swear, if I ever see that bastard Harman ever again, I'm gonna kill him." Jill said.

Claire picked up the sets of clothes Harman had brought with him, totally unimpressed.

"If I wasn't covered with zombie-blood, there's no way I'd be seen dead in this shit." She said, holding up a pair of thick khaki pants. "How small does he think I am anyway? I can't fit into this! And they're so thick I wouldn't be able to move!"

She took out her knife and started cutting the legs off the pants.

"What are you doing?" Leon asked, totally perplexed. Claire smiled back at him, pleased he'd asked.

"Practicality. These are way too small and way too tight. I'd never get into them otherwise."

Chris just shook his head, knowing that 'practicality' wasn't a great deal worse if the shorts had an inch of leg on them, as opposed to no inches of leg. _You'd swear she was a damn teenager again_.

He'd given up trying to tell Claire that he didn't really like the way she dresses a long time ago. He picked up the clothes meant for him and quickly changed into them. They were just standard BSAA uniforms, the same sort that Chris always wore on missions. _They must know my size from what they issue me normally_.

He quickly changed into them, Jill and Leon had already changed into theirs, and Claire was just finishing up her adjustments. He looked at Jill, whose pants were a bit snug, and wondered why he'd never noticed it before.

"Are they always that tight?" He asked.

She turned around after putting her Kevlar armour back on, a grin on her face.

"You don't really expect me to believe that we've been partners for over a decade and this is the first time you've ever looked at my ass, do you?"

Chris went red, and decided to attend to his weapons instead of looking at anybody. Jill just smiled at him and giggled a bit, actually a little flattered. Chris Redfield never noticed that sort of thing.

"To answer your question, yes. Loose pants can get caught on things, make a lot of noise when you're trying to sneak around, and don't look as good."

Claire returned from behind a tree, deciding it was best to change clothes away from male eyes. Leon's eyes just about popped out of his head.

"Wow!" he said quietly.

Claire looked like she was going clubbing, not about to enter a secret laboratory filled with all kinds of ungodly creatures produced by an evil pharmaceutical company. Her shorts were no longer than six inches. Combined with her knee-high army-style boots, tight black t-shirt and BSAA vest, she really didn't look the part. If it wasn't for the guns and knife, she'd look ridiculous walking around in the lab.

"See anything you like, Leon?" she posed as she asked, seeing that Leon was a bit dazed.

"Come on, lover boy. Let's get moving." Chris said, dragging Leon away.

"Wait, Chris. We should really call HQ before we get moving. To let them know about our ammo situation." Jill said, pulling out her radio.

She thumbed it on and held it to her ear, but heard nothing. She pressed the transmit button, but nothing happened at all. She tried changing the frequency, but again nothing happened.

"Oh shit...they must have cut off communications here as well." She said, returning the radio to her belt.

"That can only mean one thing: they know we're coming. Harman must have been wrong about them not having any security around that front door." Leon said.

"Then we'll have to be cautious. But we still have to go in, even if we _are_ short on ammo. Let's move." Chris said, leading the way to the lab's supposed entrance.

---------------------------------------------

They approached the entrance cautiously, not using their flashlights in order to avoid anything that might see the light. If Tricell knew they were here, there wasn't any point taking chances. Chris walked slowly to the door, his P226 at the ready. He reached it and inspected the handle: locked, of course. But it wasn't what he'd been expecting. He was sure he'd see a combination style number pad next to the door, but it was just a regular key lock. He turned around to Jill and nodded at her. She made her way to the door and took out a lock pick. While she fiddled with the lock, Leon tapped Chris on the shoulder and held out his hands in a 'what's going on?' gesture.

"Jill used to be a thief before she became a S.T.A.R.S. member. She was Alpha team's resident lock-picker." Chris whispered.

"Oh." Leon whispered back.

When Jill finished with the lock, she carefully opened the heavy door, which didn't make a sound, thankfully. She raised her Beretta and stepped inside the facility, followed by the others.

They found themselves in a well-lit lobby, with a facility map mounted on a board in front of them, kind of like the ones in a big shopping centre. Leon walked up to the map and started looking for anything of interest. Jill and Chris took places at his side, watching for anything in front of them as well, and Claire watched the rear.

He studied the map, running his finger over it as he found directions.

"Looks like it's all on one level, but it's huge. It won't be easy finding our way around." He spoke quietly. "There's an underground helipad with a loading dock on the other side of the facility, and all the labs appear to be on the east side. The whole place is about a kilometre in every direction."

"We'll take the helipad, and you and Claire take the labs." Chris said.

"Okay then. Just head straight from here. There's a few things in your way, but just keep heading north and you'll find it." Leon replied.

The four of them left the map behind and headed off. Claire and Leon headed right after about twenty metres, leaving Chris and Jill on their own. They walked quickly and quietly, seeing only offices on each side, and a sort of garden area straight ahead of them. They entered the garden and looked around. It was a big circular stone area about forty metres in diameter, with a large statue of an attacking hawk in the middle, emblazoned with the Tricell logo underneath. There were corridors leading away to the left, right and straight ahead, with signs above each. The one on the left read 'Administration', the right one read 'Quarters', and the one directly ahead read 'Loading Bay and Supply Department'. They glanced at each corridor quickly before moving off towards the north corridor.

Just as they reached it, they heard loud, high-pitched squeals coming from the left and right corridors, followed by several thumping sounds. Jill turned immediately and saw what she thought she'd never seen again. They appeared to be monkey-like creatures. Dozens of them.

"Eliminators! Go, Chris!" she yelled, taking off down the corridor as fast as she could.

The creatures screamed as they ran, and they ran fast. They caught up to Jill and Chris in a matter of seconds, and there were no doors or even alcoves along the corridor to hide in, even for a moment. Jill holstered her Beretta and drew the shotgun, firing behind her as she ran. Several of the beasts screamed and were sent flying backwards, knocking the rest off their feet as well. It didn't stop them for long, though, and they all got up again fairly quickly. Chris and Jill kept running, finally seeing a big blast door fifty metres ahead of them.

"In there!" Chris yelled, pointing as he ran.

They made the blast door with the monkey-creatures about twenty metres behind them. The door was firmly closed, but didn't have a lock.

"Cover me!" he yelled as he fumbled with the door button.

Jill aimed the shotgun as the creatures got close and fired again, killing the one in front, but still leaving about twenty intact. She fired again and again, shooting all four of her remaining shells before the door was open wide enough to get through.

"Jill!" he yelled, and dived through the doors.

Jill spun around and jumped through, landing gracefully. She quickly reloaded the shotgun as Chris held off the monkey-creatures. Once she'd finished reloading she started firing again.

"Chris! Get this thing closed!" she yelled.

Chris ran to the button and pressed it over and over again, as if that would somehow make it close faster. He started shooting the creatures again, managing to kill a few of them. Jill ran out of shells again, and dropped the gun on the floor at her feet. She took her handgun out and started firing through the slowly decreasing gap, managing to kill a couple more. The door finally closed, and the two of them sagged to the floor.

"Are you ok?" Chris asked, removing his used clip and putting a fresh one in.

"Fine." She replied. "Now I know why Claire trimmed her pants. These are useless. Why would the BSAA issue these?" She ran a hand along her thigh, inspecting the thick material.

Chris thought to himself, then frowned.

"Something's not right about that Harman guy. Firstly, I've never heard of a Harman anywhere. Second, BSAA issue uniforms are purposely light to improve comfort and freedom of movement. Those might look great, but as you noticed, they're hard to run in. Material's too thick. And last, the BSAA don't issue _any_ point-four-oh calibre weapons. They're all parabellums."

"You're right...I didn't notice that before." Jill started thinking. "And did you notice how surprised he was when Leon introduced himself? He should have known about him."

"Something's definitely not right here. Someone wanted us to come in short of ammo. They must be trying to test us."

"Or test themselves." Jill surmised.

----------------------------------------

Leon's radio started going off, which pleased him. Apparently, communications were fine as long as they were inside the facility.

"_Leon."_ Jill's voice came through. _"We think we've been set up."_

"Yeah I had a feeling we were when that Harman guy didn't seem surprised that Chris hit him." He replied.

"_If you see anything that might tell us what's going on here, let us know ASAP."_

"You got it."

Leon turned to Claire, who was keeping watch behind them.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

"Yeah. I thought we might have been. No BSAA officer would be that unprofessional. It's all rather subtle though, don't you think? I mean, wrong ammo, but not for the magnum and shotgun? Uncomfortable uniforms? They want us to be here, they just don't want us to have much of a chance."

"I think you're right. But I'm guessing they didn't expect us to _have_ a shotgun or a magnum. And if we can find some sort of armoury in here, we'll have an even better chance."

"But if they knew we were coming, and they deliberately set us up, what are the chances that they'd leave ammo just lying around for us to find?"

"Hmm..." He mumbled. "Well, standing around isn't going to improve our situation. Let's go."

They were in a corridor heading east, lab-worker's quarters lining the walls. They inspected a few of them, but they were mostly empty. There were a few personal effects littered around, but apart from some unmade beds, all the rooms were in good upkeep, and void of anything even remotely interesting, so they just kept walking. They reached the end of the hall, and found a big double-door with a sign on it that read 'Laboratories'.

"I think we found the place." Leon said, stating the obvious.

He opened the doors slowly, getting them about halfway open before they was slammed into him hard. He let out a grunt and was knocked to the ground. He looked up to see two infected lab workers, dressed in typical white lab coats standing over him.

"We've been expecting you." One of them said, speaking slowly and forming the words awkwardly.

"Were you expecting this?" Claire said, aiming one of her Berettas and firing a shot into each of their heads. Both their heads exploded and they fell backwards, hitting the floor with a soft thud.

"You okay?" Claire asked, helping Leon to his feet.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's look around."

The lab they were in was typical of any lab you'd expect to find anywhere. It had glass cabinets on the left wall, big cylindrical chambers in the middle with some sort of experiments in them, and cupboards along the right wall. Up the back of the room was where the surprise was, and Claire gasped as she took it in.

"What the hell is _that_ thing?" She pointed to a huge cubic chamber with what looked like a giant licker.

"I hope it's not what it looks like. A normal sized one is bad enough." Leon said, drawing his Desert Eagle.

The tank had a control panel on the wall next to it, with a red light situated above a small keypad. As they were edging closer to it, the light changed to green, and the creature's eyes opened.

"Oh shit." Leon mumbled as the creature's clawed hand drew back and smashed the glass.

Fragments of the chamber littered the lab, and the creature leapt out, emitting a chilling growl. Then it's tongue shot out at them, shattering the smaller chambers in the middle of the room. Ten or so creatures hopped out of them, resembling the plaga-like insect creatures Leon had killed so many of while in the Salazar castle.

"You take the insects, I'll handle the big guy." Leon said, aiming the magnum.

Claire darted off to the side, shooting the insect-creatures. She killed three of them with clean shots, but missed the next two. The creatures were very agile, jumping and crawling with amazing dexterity. She killed two more, then noticed one was on the roof just in front of Leon. Leon was busy shooting the giant licker, dodging the tongue that kept threatening to pierce his flesh. He didn't have time to deal with the insects. She quickly shot the one above his head, and was thrown to the ground by a plaga-insect that had launched itself at her. She struggled with it, trying to pull it off her. It had four of its legs wrapped around her shoulder, and another two grappling with her, trying to stab her face. She screamed, frustrated and desperate, trying to dislodge the ugly creature. She managed to snap one of its front legs, breaking it off, and the creature let out a shrill scream as it jumped off her. She picked up her gun and shot it twice, then returned to shooting the other five remaining ones.

Leon wasn't doing very well. He'd wasted an entire clip on the giant licker and all he'd managed to do was stop it from advancing. He needed to find a weak spot. The licker let out a roar and reared its head back.

_That's gotta be it. The tongue, shoot the tongue._

The tongue lashed out, but it was way too fast. Leon tilted his left shoulder slightly down, the tongue missing him by an inch. He took a moment to reposition himself, but was surprised by the tongue reaching around his back and wrapping around his neck. Leon choked and sputtered, struggling to draw breath. The licker snarled nasally, and lifted him off his feet. Leon's face was quickly turning blue, and he was beginning to lose consciousness. He dropped his magnum, desperately trying to pry the tongue from his neck.

"Leon! I'm coming!" Claire cried, and bolted across the lab.

She picked up the dropped magnum and aimed at the huge licker's mouth. She squeezed the trigger and the bullet pierced the creature's mouth, taking out a large portion of its throat and severing it's tongue. Leon dropped to the ground, out cold, while the creature simply dropped and died instantly.

"Leon! Can you hear me? LEON!" Claire yelled, kneeling on the ground next to him, his head in her lap.

She checked for a pulse, found one, and let out a huge sigh of relief.

_But we can't rest now. There'll be something else coming for us any minute, we can't stay here._

"Leon, you've got to wake up! We have to get out of here!"

Claire stroked Leon's cheeks gingerly, willing him to wake up. Then she heard groaning sounds coming from behind a door next to the chamber the licker had come out of. Her eyes widened in horror, and she stood up, aiming her weapon at the door.

"AAARRRRRHHHHH!"

A zombie charged through the door they'd come through before, grabbing Claire in a full nelson-style hold. Another two came through the door she'd been aiming at. Claire struggled against the zombie holding her, but with her arms pinned awkwardly behind her, she had no chance. The two zombies rushed at her, slowing as they reached her, one a few metres ahead of the other. The lead one had a wicked smile on its face, another ex-lab worker. Claire panicked; she couldn't use her gun if her hands were being locked behind her, and Leon was still out cold. She let out a panicked cry, not knowing what to do. The zombie stepped to within a foot of her, grinning absurdly. In desperation, she jumped up, using the zombie holding her as a counterweight to balance off of. She wrapped her thighs around the grinning one's neck, pulling it in with her feet until it was in the perfect position. She locked her ankles and squeezed as tight as she could, the zombie's eyes bulging at the sudden pressure. Then she twisted her hip violently, breaking the zombie's neck. It dropped to the ground, taking Claire with it. She rolled as she hit the floor, sending the zombie that had been holding her flying over her head. Thankfully, she hadn't dropped her gun throughout the entire ordeal, and quickly shot both the remaining infected lab workers.

She charged back over to Leon, and picked up his head from the floor, cradling it in her lap. She brushed the hair from his eyes, and he started to rouse.

"I like this view. Let's do it again some time." He said, his voice hoarse and his neck bruised.

Claire let out a cry of relief, pulling him up and giving him a rough hug.

"Easy there, I just got choked, remember?"

"Sorry!" She cried as Leon pulled away, a big smile on her face.

She cupped his face in her hands, and pulled him in slowly. She kissed him softly, and he responded, before pulling away again, taking her hands.

"We shouldn't be doing this. It's really the wrong time and place." He said, smiling.

"You're right...I'm sorry, Leon."

"It's okay, but you might want to leave this little detail out when you're telling Chris what we found."

She looked down, feeling embarrassed and ashamed. Leon pulled her in and gave her a hug, kissing her forehead.

"We can continue this later." He said with a grin, and she smiled again.

--------------------------------------

"_Jill, we found something." _Claire's voice came over the radio.

"So did we." She responded. "You go first."

"_Well, we were attacked by a giant licker, Leon almost got choked to death by it. We also had to play with some insect looking things. Kinda like some of the parasites Leon reported on his trip to Spain. And we found detailed lab reports, as well as some information on who's behind all this."_

Chris' eyes went wide.

"Tell us everything." He said.

"_Okay. They haven't gotten too far into their experimenting; they've only been able to make a couple of new B.O.W.'s, the rest are modified from old creations. The licker we encountered is called a 'Licker Delta'. There's also a Licker Gamma, but that was a failed one. We found information on the Jumpers, but we already know all that. They also managed to improve on the Eliminators; you probably know about them already. They were let loose just outside the supply department."_

"Yeah, we saw those."

"_Well be careful, they're much faster than the ones you encountered at the mansion. Anyway, apparently someone posing as William Birkin has been supplying Tricell with data from Umbrella's old research. They've been using it to create these super-zombies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they released the virus into the water supply here, that's why all the workers are infected. Don't worry, it's not an airborne strain. But when you shoot them, you have to hit them in the forehead. Anything else won't work, they'll just heal up and keep coming. They're like the old Umbrella zombies that way. Also, apparently Harold Green is around. We still don't know what he looks like, but Leon wants to arrest him if possible. They also weren't expecting us to get very far, or they wouldn't have left all this stuff lying around."_

"That's a lot of new knowledge." Jill said, taking it all in. "Now it's our turn."

"We found the helipad, and it's a lot bigger than we thought. And there's also hundreds of infected, we're gonna need your help. They haven't noticed us yet, so we're not gonna blow our cover until you get here. Also, we found some sort of office, so we hacked into the computer and found something rather interesting about our friend Harman." Chris explained.

"_Harman...what did you find out?"_ Claire asked.

"He works for Tricell as a kind of spy. He was instructed to take out our BSAA contact before we arrived, and assume his place. They switched the handgun rounds so we'd have less chance, but they didn't know what other weapons we had. Apparently they wanted to test their creatures on us, which is why they let us in. They thought it'd be more interesting if they did little things like give us different clothing, which is why Claire and Jill's pants were so thick and uncomfortable. We've got quite bad news though. We think Leon's friend Amy is dead." Chris said solemnly.

"_How do you know that?" _Leon's voice asked through the radio.

"Harman was ordered to board the chopper we came in on, as per our contact's instructions, but he was ordered to kill the pilot and take the chopper back to the helipad. We saw him land a few minutes ago, and he was carrying Amy's body out."

There was a long pause.

"Leon? Claire? You still there?" Jill asked.

Another pause.

"_We're coming. Don't move."_


	4. Lab Facility 2

**Remnants**

Author's Note: I'm gonna warn you all in advance that there's bits of this chapter that are a bit twisted. Not everyone's going to like it, but I only wrote it in to convey how bad a certain character is. I don't wanna give too much away, so I won't say any more.

**Chapter 4**

"Did you run into any trouble on the way?" Chris whispered to his sister.

"No, the way was clear." She responded.

Claire looked around the helipad. It was massive, easily large enough to house a dozen helicopters, although there were only two at the moment. One was the BSAA chopper they'd come in, the other was emblazoned with the Tricell logo. The roof to the 'pad was still open, the clear night sky obscured by the bright lights inside. The helipad itself was sunk at least ten metres lower than where they were currently crouched, which was a sort of semi-circle surrounding the southern part of the 'pad with a few offices on either side, all of which Chris and Jill had already inspected. There were several large trucks loaded with some sort of cargo, hidden from view by large tarpaulins. There were also several hundred infected employees, each either inspecting unloaded cargo or unloading said cargo from the Tricell chopper and the trucks. None of them noticed the four intruders – yet.

"There's gotta be at least two hundred of them." Claire exclaimed.

"Yeah, roughly. See that door over there? The one behind those two trucks?" Chris pointed ahead and slightly to the right, just past where the raised semi-circle platform they were standing on ended.

Claire and Leon looked, and saw the door, partially hidden behind two very large trucks with the Tricell logo on each of them.

"It looks like some sort of control room." Leon noted.

"It is. The controls for the roof are in there, as well as the emergency override controls for the whole facility." Jill explained. "Our only chance of getting out of here will probably be to get in there. It won't take them long to figure out we're here. And when they do, they'll trigger the emergency system."

"That'll lock down all the doors in the whole place, including the roof to the facility. They can turn on the emergency system from somewhere else, but the only way to open the roof when it's going is to use the controls in there. We can steal one of the choppers while the roof is closing, and hopefully get out of here." Chris said.

"That won't be easy." Leon looked sceptical. "They're gonna come looking if someone opens the roof. And then we _still_ have to get to the chopper without anyone seeing us."

"I know...but it's the only way. We can't risk going out the front door, even if we _could_ reach it in time. Whatever they're doing here can't be allowed to see daylight. We need to get out of here and order an air strike. As fast as possible, and at least make sure that none of them escapes for a little while afterwards."

Leon thought for a moment, Jill and Chris waiting for his response. He was, after all, still in charge of the mission.

"Okay, let's do it." Leon looked down off the edge of the huge half-ring platform they were standing on, and noticed some more trucks that were completely unloaded already.

"We can use those as cover while we get to the control room." He said.

The four of them ran back towards the door they came in from, moving towards a small platform lift in the corner. There was a much larger platform lift where they were standing before, but it was too obvious; someone would see them. They all stood on the small lift, barely able to contain them all, and it slowly made its way down the ten metres to the helipad below. Luckily, it didn't make much noise, so no one was likely to notice it. When it reached the bottom, they found themselves in a short, cramped corridor leading out to the helipad, with a truck blocking the view to the rest of the helipad.

They jogged cautiously over to the truck, Leon taking point, followed by Jill, then Claire, with Chris taking the rear. They darted quickly from cover to cover, silently padding their way across the helipad. They reached the control room, thankfully obscured from view by another unloaded truck, and stepped inside, closing the door silently behind them.

"Good thing all those zombies are on the other side." Claire sighed lengthily.

Leon booted up the computer, accessing the emergency override controls. He didn't need to use it yet, but there was no point being unprepared. Chris rummaged through the drawers in the computer desk, and couldn't believe his eyes: a .40 calibre Heckler and Koch USP – like Leon's, only unmodified – and like a shining beacon to his salvation, a Smith and Wesson Model 500 magnum revolver. Underneath them was a note. It read:

_Dear Mr Green,_

_In the event that our experiment fails and the two BSAA agents get the better of you, I have a little gift. The handgun you may not need, but the revolver will probably please you. The infected workers here will all obey you, as will the beasts, so you shouldn't need it. This is just a little insurance, given the whimpering attitude you've displayed so far. Harman has been sent to give you a hand, and that's all we can spare for you. You will both report to me whatever the outcome. I expect to hear from you no later than six-hundred hours tomorrow morning. Do NOT fail me again, Harold, or I'll kill you myself._

_W.B._

"W.B....hmm..." Chris mumbled to himself, thinking. He picked up the magnum, and saw that it was fully loaded. _This just keeps getting better, _he smiled to himself – a huge, toothy grin, like a kid who gets the toy for Christmas that he's wanted all year.

"Damn, they know we're here. Emergency systems enabled, they're locking the whole place down. I'm gonna get those hangar doors open and try to find out who's doing all this." Leon said, hammering away at the keyboard.

"How much time do we have?" Jill asked, checking her ammo supply.

"Uh..." Leon looked at his watch, then at the screen. "I'd say about three minutes, tops. Damn, it's that Green from the power plant. _He's_ the one locking everything down."

"There's a note in the drawer here from a 'W.B.' issuing orders to Green. He's supposed to contact this person at oh-six-hundred this morning." Chris explained. "He also left Green with these."

Chris held up the handgun and the magnum, the big boyish grin returning.

"That's a big gun." Jill gasped.

"You've already got a shotgun, so I'm taking this one." Chris grinned, and Jill looked forlorn. "How much ammo have we all got? I get the feeling we'll need to know pretty soon."

They all counted their stock, ejecting clips and opening pouches as quickly as they could.

"I've got one clip and three spare." Claire reported.

"Two clips, one spare." Jill said.

"I've got one and six spare. That makes seventy." Chris inspected the H&K handgun he'd just found. "This is a point-four-oh. I think you should take it, and give us your nine-mill rounds." He looked at Claire as he spoke, but gestured at himself and Jill.

"Hurry up, they're turning this way..." Leon stated, looking straight out the window to the helipad, where a few of the infected workers had begun to walk towards the control room – probably to override the emergency system.

Claire gave her nine-millimetre rounds to Jill and Chris, who divided them, and she took five clips from Leon's pouch. She loaded the USP, noting the slightly heavier weight of the magazine.  
"What should I do with this?" She held up her spare Beretta.

"Leave it. You'll need the empty holster." Chris said.

Claire dropped the Beretta on the ground while everyone else reloaded their weapons.

"So what's the plan?" Jill asked Leon.

"We need to get to that chopper, but we can't be heard. Don't use your guns on those three approaching. When they get in here, stab them in the spine. Then we run for it."

The three zombies ambled into the control room, Leon and the others hiding underneath the window sill next to the door. The last one to enter closed the door behind him and turned on the light. Leon, Jill and Claire each jumped on one of them from behind, whipping their knives out and stabbing straight into the sides of their necks. Blood spurted out of their necks as the knives pierced a vital artery, and the zombies went limp, clumping to the floor in three soft thuds. _No _creature can survive after having its spinal cord severed at the neck, no matter what it was.

"Stab them a few more times, just to make sure they don't heal themselves or something." Chris instructed, then led the way out of the room.

They bolted for the BSAA chopper – the closest one – and were about ten feet away from it when Harman stepped out, holding a grenade.

"Hold them." He commanded to the zombies, and several of them ran forward and held all four of them tightly, completely immobilising them.

"Harman!" Chris yelled. "Let us go now!"

"And give you the opportunity to escape? How dumb do you think I am?"

Harman grinned, tossing the hand-grenade up and catching it.

"You made it much further than we thought you would. But I guess I shouldn't expect any less from the BSAA's finest." His smile widened, and he looked at Claire, checking her out again. "I see you found a way to render my restrictive clothing rather useless. And don't you just look great doing it."

"You touch her and you're dead, Harman." Leon seethed, hissing the words through gritted teeth.

"And just how do you plan on executing this threat of yours, Mister Scott Kennedy? I've done my research on you since we first met outside, and you do have quite an impressive record. I'm not doubting your skills, but I do think the odds are slightly stacked in my favour, wouldn't you agree?" Harman gestured at the hundreds of infected, who were all grunting softly, creating a creepy echo throughout the huge helipad.

"I might be a little twisted, some might even say slightly evil. But I'm not _entirely_ without a conscience. Or an ego, for that matter. I watched your girlfriend's fight with the Licker Delta and some of our friends here, the Liberados. And might I say, for someone without any military or special training at all, you really do impress me. To further sway my opinion, you're a beautiful woman as well. I'd be willing to let you all go...on one condition."

"Forget it, you chauvinist freak." Jill yelled angrily. "You're not doing ANYTHING to Claire unless you want your head blown off your fucking shoulders."

"Now, now. There's no need for aggression. This is a good deal I'm offering you." He grinned slyly, and Leon could swear he was hiding something. "I've been trained extensively with firearms, but I've also had a great deal of melee combat training. If the girl beats me, you all leave without any further ado. The girl loses, you all die and I get paid." Harman's sly grin widened as Jill's face turned redder and redder.

Leon knew Harman's offer didn't make any sense: there was no way he was going to risk everything he stood to gain on a fight with Claire. Trained or not, if he lost, he'd die. No one would get paid, and Tricell's operations in this facility would be completely ruined.

"What do you get out of it if you lose?" Leon asked calmly.

"That's simple." Harman strode slowly over to Leon. "I have no love of Tricell. I particularly don't like their little informant, this 'William Birkin', though I don't think that's his real name. I'd like to see him fall. But I'd also like to get paid. So either way, I win."

"But if you're dead, how can you see Tricell fall? What are you hiding?" Chris demanded.

Harman walked over to Chris and dropped a set of keys in the left breast pocket of his vest.

"Those are the keys to the helicopter you see before you. I have the keys to the other one. Chances are I won't lose this fight. But if I do, I'll just escape. You'll all still be held by the Liberados, so there's nothing you can do. _Everything_ hinges on your faith in the girl." Harman's grin returned.

They all knew it - there was no chance they would escape unless Claire could defeat Harman. But it wasn't going to be easy at all: Harman was trained, and strong by the look of him. Claire was a resourceful, dextrous young woman, but there wasn't much chance she could beat him. But then, there wasn't any other way. She _had_ to win.

"I'll do it." Claire sighed loudly.

"That's the spirit!" Harman looked terrifically excited. "Take her weapons, the knife too." He ordered the Liberados holding her.

They took Claire's two handguns and her knife, dropping them to the floor in front of them. Leon and Chris noticed it, and each started thinking of ways to recover them when the opportunity presented itself.

Claire walked slowly up towards Harman, who was flexing his fingers, emitting loud cracks from his knuckles. His grin was extraordinarily wide now, obviously relishing the moment.

"Now you watch your friend die!"

Harman charged at Claire with surprising speed, his right fist reared back at waist-level. Claire spun away to her right, but Harman saw it coming and clotheslined her with his massive left arm. Claire let out a dull cry, and hit the ground flat on her back. Harman jumped into the air, preparing for an elbow-drop. Claire's eyes widened and she rolled away moments before Harman hit the ground. He grunted with slight pain, but more through annoyance, and stood up quickly. Claire stepped forward with her left leg and smashed her right palm into Harman's jaw, but only succeeded in spinning his head around. Harman just smiled at her before heaving his fist into her belly, knocking her into the air about a foot. She crashed to the ground on her knees, eyes bulging in pain and struggling to draw breath.

"This is quickly becoming very disappointing, Miss Redfield." Harman said, grabbing her under the chin and lifting her to her feet.

Claire folded her arms across her belly, still totally winded and unable to speak. Harman let go of her chin and strolled casually around behind her. He grabbed her wrists and held them in one big hand behind her back, while his other hand snaked around her side and touched her belly. Claire flinched as Harman poked her, taunting her.

"Sorry about your beautiful midriff, princess, but that's the reality of a good fight, isn't it?" Harman snarled.

His hand lightly caressed her belly, sliding up to her left breast. He gave it a squeeze.

"Ooo, this is making it all better for me! A fight that'll go down in history, to be sure!" Harman laughed, looking at Leon and Chris as he spoke.

Chris wriggled impatiently, trying to free himself so he could save his sister.

"Don't you fucking touch her, Harman! DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER!" He screamed, his eyes rimmed in darkness and his face completely red.

"Oh, you mean don't touch her like this?" Harman taunted, and his hand made its way to her thighs.

Claire sobbed, desperately trying to free herself. She realised she'd caught her breath, though, and her thoughts instantly became clearer.

"You're a sick, sick fuck, Harman, and you're going to die. _I'M _going to kill you! _YOU HEAR ME? YOU'RE MINE!_" Chris' face had turned an inhuman shade of purple. His pure, seething rage at seeing this monster with his sister while he was forced to watch was more than he could bear. Normally he didn't let personal feelings cloud his judgement, but his life hinged on this moment, and it was his baby sister that was doing the fighting for him.

Claire had recomposed herself now, and decided to get free of Harman's grasp. She took a half-step forward and kicked backwards with her right leg as hard as she could, striking Harman in the balls. He let out a wail, his hands releasing Claire's wrists and instantly going for his crushed nuts. He fell to his knees, unable to move thanks to the horrendous pain. Chris silently cheered for her; it was _exactly_ what Harman deserved.

Claire dropped into her best unpractised fighting stance before kicking Harman's face as hard as she could possible kick. He fell backwards, his head hitting the ground hard. He cried a pained gasp and coughed up a little blood, but the blow to the head hadn't exactly had the desired effect. Instead of being in twice as much pain, all it did was divert attention away from his bruised crotch.

Claire went to kick him again, but this time Harman caught her foot, pulling her in and landing another devastating blow to her guts. Claire screamed in pain and reeled backwards, falling on her ass, tears streaming down her face.

"Claire!" Leon cried, trying to dislodge the three Liberados holding him, but to no avail.

"Nice moves, but as you can see I'm still standing, and you're in more pain than I am." Harman said to her, his voice dropping to a low growl. "I suppose it wasn't very fair of me to choose the only one of you who hasn't been trained to fight against me. But then, I'm not a very nice man." Another sick grin etched its way onto his face as he walked purposefully over to Claire, who had now sat up, leaning backwards on her hands and trying to catch her breath.

She went over in her mind all the possible things she could do to get the fight back into her balance, but nothing seemed like it would work. She'd tried kicking him, she'd tried punching him, she'd even tried kicking him in the nuts. Nothing worked. And as good as a kick to the nuts _might_ work, he'd be on guard against that. Then she remembered her fight with the two zombies – _Liberados_ - in the lab. Claire smiled, although still slightly out of breath.

"What's so funny, Miss Redfield?" Harman asked, teeth gritted, still wearing that evil grin.

He leaned over her, taunting her. Claire rolled onto her back, raising both her feet.

"That won't work again, you'll have to do better!" Harman brought a hand up, ready to catch the inevitable blow to the balls.

But Claire didn't kick him in the balls. She kicked him in the head again, with both feet. Harman grunted angrily and fell backwards. Claire jumped to her feet and rushed over to him, setting herself down next to him. She quickly grabbed his head and pulled it up between her thighs, locking her ankles and squeezing. She rolled onto her right side, keeping his left arm pinned underneath his own body while she grabbed his right wrist with both hands and held it with all her strength. She looked down at him, his face growing redder, desperation beginning to show.

"Having fun now, Harman?" She taunted.

"Fuck you...bitch..." Harman grunted.

Claire let loose another burst of strength, squeezing so hard Harman's eyes bulged. He started making gagging noises and his face began to go purple. Claire wanted to torment him, but she also understood that they had to escape, and fast. She rolled onto her back, and instantly Harman's left hand started clawing at her uncoverered thighs, desperately trying to pry himself free. She squeezed tighter once again, and Harman's eyes began to shut, unable to take the enormous pressure Claire was inflicting on his neck. He started flailing around uncontrollably, then his limbs dropped limply to the floor. He'd passed out. Claire quickly snapped her hips, breaking his neck.

She let out a massive, relieved sigh and made her way painfully to her feet. She looked down at the deceased Harman. He lay on his belly, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. She quickly turned away, totally relieved that he was gone, but disturbed because she'd had to kill a man. And she'd done it without using a weapon, which made it worse. Harman might have been a sick, pig of a man, but he was still a man, and not infected. Having to kill _anyone_ who wasn't a zombie wasn't something she ever thought she'd have to do. She ran over to where the Liberados had dropped her guns and knife and picked them up. They released Chris, Jill and Leon, but didn't attack.

"Are you alright?" Leon asked.

Claire rushed over to him and wrapped her arms around him, collapsing into his chest. She nodded, and started sobbing quietly.

Chris walked over and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. He looked around at all the Liberados, noting that they were just standing there looking at them, not moving.

"What's going on, here? Why aren't they attacking us?" Jill asked, worry drenching her voice.

"Because _I_ haven't commanded them to."

They looked up towards the door at the top of the half-ring concrete platform, and saw a balding man wearing a dirty white shirt, arms folded and a pleased look on his face.

"I have to thank you for getting rid of Harman. I never liked the guy anyway. I was actually planning on doing it myself. But thanks to you, Claire Redfield, I no longer have to worry about that."

"It's you! You're the guy from the power plant." Leon shouted, confused.

"Oh, you haven't figured it out yet? For a top government agent, you're really not all that bright." The man said, a smile spreading across his fat face. "My name is Harold Green."

"Green..." Chris muttered. "So _you're_ Green."

"Indeed." Green said proudly, then turned his attention to Claire. "That was quite an entertaining match that you just put on for me. Almost as good as my performance back in the power plant, wouldn't you agree?" He smirked at her.

"What do you mean?" Claire asked, still holding her belly in pain from Harman's powerful blows, her voice not as strong as it usually was.

"Well Harman was a..._special_ case. We thought we'd try something on him. It wasn't as potent as Tricell's other products, and left the host much the same in terms of mental capacity and physical appearance. Harman was an excellent manager, but he wasn't much good for anything else. So when we approached him with the experimental parasite, naturally he agreed."

"So he was infected too." Jill thought out loud.

"Oh yes, he was definitely infected. As you saw for yourself, his physical capabilities were greatly enhanced, but his personality was a little..._compromised_." Green grinned, obviously enjoying his speech about Harman's demise. "I'm supposed to report on the success or failure of the experiment. I'd say I can safely report a failure. It's too bad, really. Nobody's going to miss him."

"So what are _you_ doing here, then?" Claire asked, very relieved at the knowledge that Harman was infected, and not a normal man that she'd just killed. Not having his death on her conscience was an anvil off her shoulders.

"I've come to clean up the mess, so to speak. You see, you were never supposed to get past Harman. And although I'm not upset at his passing, I still have to finish off his job."

Green leapt down from the platform, landing comfortably on his feet like he'd just jumped off a chair.

"What?!" Jill cried. "That's ten metres high, at least!"

"I can do _much_ more than jump." Green said proudly, and began to crouch into a sort of standing foetal-position. His body began to swell, everything becoming disproportionately large. His height quickly increased to twice a normal man's, and his muscles began to break through his skin. He let out a painful-sounding roar, and his body began to sprout extra appendages. There were several shorter ones coming out of his arms and legs, and two long ones coming out of his shoulders. They looked exactly like the plaga parasites that came out of the infected people's necks.

"Let's see how you do against me." Green roared, his voice had become unnaturally low pitched and loud. "You lot, this is my fight. Go and secure the exits, and get that hangar door closed." He ordered to the hundreds of Liberados, who dispersed towards the two exits from the helipad with the exception of two, who went to the control room. When they'd all cleared out, he turned his attention back to Leon and the others.

The two shoulder-plaga shot out towards the four of them, growing to at least thirty metres. They all dived, missing the blows, and stood up. They drew their handguns, shooting wildly at the appendages.

"Claire, take cover behind one of the trucks!" Leon yelled, knowing that with only a handgun, she didn't have much chance up close.

Jill ran towards Green, holstering her Beretta and drawing the Ithaca, and leaped over a low blow from Green's swiping arm. She took aim quickly and shot at the arm. The exposed plaga all writhed, and Green swung again in a backhand, knocking Jill several metres backwards. She coughed as she hit the ground, but got back on her feet again. Claire continued to fire at the smaller appendages from her cover spot behind the tray of one of the trucks.

"Leon! Aim for the shoulders!" Chris yelled, drawing his new hand-cannon.

Leon nodded and drew his Desert Eagle, and they shot twice each at each of the shoulder-plaga. They both snapped off, and Green roared in pain, stumbling backwards and falling.

"Now!" Leon yelled to Jill.

She bolted towards Green, jumping onto his fallen body and up to his head. She aimed the shotgun into his mouth and fired, blood spraying back at her as she turned her head away from the blast. Green screamed in agony, his voice becoming a higher pitched shrill scream. He started to get up, and Jill ran as fast as she could away from him. He stamped his left foot, shaking the ground beneath them.

Claire was still firing at the smaller plaga coming from Green's arms and legs. She'd already spent two clips, not firing at any one appendage in particular. She concentrated fire on one on his left arm, firing off five bullets. The plaga snapped off, and Green screamed again, stumbling once more.

"Shoot him in the mouth again!" She yelled.

Leon and Chris ran as close as they dared, aiming carefully up at Green's mouth and pulling the triggers of their magnums. The bullets struck the roof of his mouth, shredding it. He swiped at his own mouth dumbly, stumbling like a drunk man.

"Chris! Leon! Every time we shoot his head, he gets dumber!" Jill yelled.

She ran towards Green again, aiming her shotgun and blasting off another plaga. Flesh and thick blood sprayed away from her and coated the trucks behind him. He screamed again, unable to do anything but stumble and scream. Four opponents was simply too much to handle at once, even if he _was_ transformed into a huge, hideous beast. Claire managed to blast two more plaga off his right leg, while Leon and Chris fired several more powerful magnum bolts into his skull.

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Green was getting weak, and he knew it. He hadn't expected that they'd find a weakness so quickly. He had to escape, but he had to buy himself some time. If he could just divert their attention for a few seconds, he could revert back to his regular human form and escape on the Tricell chopper. He looked around desperately for anything that he could use, bullets still pumping into him, making him stumble. He spotted a grenade on the ground – Harman must have dropped it. _That idiot always carried a grenade around, like it made him tougher or something, _he thought to himself, and smiled. He never thought Harman's ego would actually come in handy. He swiped violently, picking up the grenade. _Perfect_, he thought to himself, _a flash grenade_.

He remembered that the hangar roof doors were now closed though, thanks to his closed-minded confidence. He cursed himself inwardly. Then he saw the girl, Claire, out of the corner of his eye, hiding behind a truck in front of the control room. He noticed that Chris Redfield had stopped firing the magnum at him, and so had Leon Kennedy. Leon was reloading his gun, and Chris had resorted to a pistol. A pistol he could handle. He grinned slyly and swiped at the truck, knocking it through the control room window. The control room exploded, and the roof sections began to open. The girl jumped up, totally surprised, and started shooting at his hand as Green tried to pick her up. She jumped, but Green managed to grab her ankle, and slung her across the helipad towards the other three.

_Perfect. Now that they're all in one place, this'll be easy._

He activated the grenade and threw it at them. It flashed an intense, white light, causing them to fall over, totally disoriented. He swiped at three of them, knocking them several feet backwards, adding pain to their confusion, and ran for the Tricell chopper, reverting to his previous state as he went. He jumped in moments later, and made his way to the pilot's chair. He started the rotor-blades, willing them to speed up faster.

_Come on! Come ON!_

Chris and Leon were already on their feet, and began taking shots at the chopper. It was armoured, so the shots wouldn't do _too_ much damage. The rotor blades picked up speed, and a light on the control panel indicated that the chopper was ready to fly.

----------------------------------------

"He's getting away! Dammit! Shoot him down!" Chris yelled.

The chopper was lifting off the ground, wobbling around but still gaining altitude. It was halfway towards the open hangar doors when Jill remembered something.

"Leon!" She cried out, Leon being the closest to the BSAA chopper. "There's a rocket launcher in that chopper!"

Leon's eyes opened wide in delight, and he sprinted to the chopper. He quickly looked around, and spotted it. It was mounted to the back wall of the cabin above a bench. He grabbed it and ran back out, dropping to one knee and carefully taking aim. Green had already cleared the top of the hangar and was starting to fly off when Leon fired the rocket-propelled grenade. It sailed off brutally fast, striking the chopper and exploding on impact, spraying shrapnel all over the landscape above them.

Leon smiled.

"I _hate_ choppers."


	5. Forest

**Remnants**

**Chapter 5**

She got up from the ground surrounding the open helipad doors and ran to where she'd put the rifle. It was a SIG-556, and although it wasn't her preference in snipers, it was adequate and that was good enough. She reached the tree she'd leant it against and picked it up, finding solace in its heavy structure, in the feel of its large magazine. It had purpose, reason, intent, just like she did. She had her orders, and she had her prerogative. She was ordered to kill Green if he attempted escape, which he did. She never expected Leon would shoot the armoured chopper down with a rocket launcher, although in retrospect maybe she should have seen that one coming.

With all the searching into the past, she almost forgot what she was there to do. After killing Green, and thereby eliminating any need to sacrifice to him millions upon millions of dollars in cash and potential bio-weapon sales, she was meant to observe the Liberados' slaughter of the two BSAA agents and their counterparts. But she hadn't counted on Harman taking the BSAA chopper and _keeping _it. He was _supposed_ to _destroy_ it, not giving the four intruders any chance to escape. But she knew from experience that he had absolutely no respect for women whatsoever; he'd tried to get his hands on her, too. She had, of course, broken those hands after he did so. Luckily for him though, he'd agreed to the experiment and had healed up rather quickly, but not before understanding that if you disrespect _this_ woman, you get hurt.

She knew, however, that he would try something stupid to get his hands on one of the pretty agents that had intruded on Tricell's secondary experimental facility, and so she'd brought the rifle with her just in case she needed to shoot someone. She also knew as soon as she saw Claire Redfield enter the facility with the other three that it would be _her_ that Harman would try to have his way with; Jill Valentine was far too strong and experienced to take a chance on, even by one as dense as Harman. And she _also_ knew that infected or not, he didn't have a chance against someone of Claire's skill. She was far too resourceful to be defeated by someone as blunt, arrogant, and witless as Maxwell Harman. Truth be told, she could have just run in there and shot all four of them and the mission would be over and done with, but she wanted to see what they had learned over the years. And she had no desire to blow her cover _just_ yet. It would be much more fun for her if they realised when it was all too late. She didn't like seeing good people fall without purpose – usually - but she _was_ a mercenary after all, and she'd seen enough of good and bad people to know that the only thing that counts is how much they can pay her. And the bad guys _always_ paid more.

Without a second thought to ruin her carefully prepared frame of mind, she shot the BSAA chopper out of the sky with a single, extremely well placed shot.

------------------------------------------

Chris stepped out last, the pilot's chair being the furthest from the only surviving door out of the chopper.

"Another reason why I hate choppers." Leon complained.

"I think I see why." Jill agreed, rubbing her aching shoulder.

"What happened? Did we hit something?" Claire asked, wondering why it was _her_ that kept getting hurt the most.

"No way, we were shot down." Chris said.

He'd heard the sound of a bullet hitting a chopper before, and that was definitely what had hit them. A bullet fired by someone with an incredible aim and a very accurate gun.

"By who, is what I'd like to know." Jill thought out loud. "None of those Liberados in the facility were armed, and none of them were present when we escaped. So there shouldn't have been anyone around. Someone was waiting for us, and I'm willing to bet they work for Tricell."

"That's gotta be it. Which means that person is still around, and has a wicked aim." Chris said. "Let's try the radios, we gotta get outta here fast."

Jill pulled her radio from her belt and tried calling for BSAA HQ. There was still no answer, the radio was completely useless. She shook her head.

"Well, we've still gotta move. Those Liberados won't wait forever, and neither will the shooter." Chris said, picking himself up.

"Where do we go?" Claire asked softly.

"We're not far from the northern edge of this forest, so I say we find our way to a road." Leon planned as he spoke. "The more open space we can use, the better. And we might be able to get something through on the radio from there, or hitch a ride back to LA. We should fan out, then head back in and report."

"Sounds good to me." Chris said, nodding.

"Let's go, then." Jill said, eager to finally get away from the facility they'd just left.

"Not so fast, we need to check our ammo." Claire said, pulling Jill back as she tried to walk off.

They all checked their supplies, and all looked very disappointed. They'd wasted a lot of ammo while fighting Harold Green, and didn't have much left. They didn't expect they'd need it, with the chopper and all, so they'd gone nuts on him and fired off as many rounds as it took.

"I've only got six shots left." Chris muttered.

"I'm not so bad: twenty handgun shots and twelve magnum rounds." Leon said, slapping the clip back into the Desert Eagle.

"Fourteen shells and twenty five nine-mills." Jill reloaded the Ithaca.

"One full clip." Claire checked her pouch for some more, but found none.

Jill gave Chris a full clip of nine-millimetre rounds, and he put the extra clip into a holder on his belt.

"Right then, let's split up. Jill and I will take the left, you and Leon take the right." Chris said, looking at Claire. "Fan out and walk for fifteen minutes, then head straight back here to report in half an hour."

"Isn't that a bit risky?" Claire asked him. "I mean, if that shooter can take out an armoured helicopter with one shot, he can most likely shoot any of us without much problem. And we don't even know what kinds of other things might be out here. For all we know, this new virus-parasite thing could have infected the whole forest. I don't like this."

"That's true, but if we fan out we might find something useful, like a landline phone or a car. If we stay in a big group, we might never see something like that, and we'd be a much louder and easier target for anyone or anything that may be here." Chris explained.

"I know it makes sense, I just think it's not worth the risk if we get killed."

"And if we don't risk it, our chances of dying increase anyway." Chris folded his arms across his chest, adamant in his decision.

Claire looked to Leon for support, but Leon looked reasonably pleased.

"I agree with your brother. We cover more ground this way, and it's only for half an hour." He said.

Claire looked to Jill, who still looked eager to get going, so she gave up.

"Fine, let's go then." She relented.

The foursome panned their steps in a semicircle, Jill and Leon heading left and right respectively at roughly forty-five degrees, Chris and Claire at about fifteen degrees. Within moments, the dense bushland had covered all sounds of their companions' footsteps with sounds of the wind and the night. With flashlights and handguns in hand, they searched the forest.

-----------------------------------------

Chris was feeling very anxious; he'd done this before, after all, and last time it turned out to be the worst night of his life. Since then he'd taken every opportunity to avoid forests and mansions whenever possible. But this time, he couldn't. Feeling resigned to his situation, he kept walking, his P226 his only comfort. He'd modified it himself, after years of using the BSAA and before that, the S.T.A.R.S. standard issue Beretta 92F's. They were all well and good, but a little extra grit went a long way, especially when you were shooting things that didn't always drop from a bullet wound. If he had his way, he'd just order an air strike and nuke the whole damn forest. But that couldn't be done, protected forests being, well, protected. And there was always the fact that the radios weren't working. He checked his watch: it had been ten minutes since he'd left the others, and he hadn't seen a damn thing. He kept walking for a few minutes, then he heard some crunching noises coming from up ahead; like someone walking carelessly over the forest floor.

_Crunching means footsteps, and careless footsteps means zombies._

He took aim in the direction of the noise, and edged closer to it, being careful not to make the same loud crunching noises. He watched the trees ahead of him, waiting for something to come running out at him. Then something grabbed him from behind roughly. Taken totally by surprise, he instinctively elbowed whoever it was in the guts as hard as he could, and it let go of him. Then the source of the noise appeared right in front of him: another Liberados, wielding a crowbar. It swung at him forcefully, and he ducked, stumbling and falling onto his side. He kicked the thing's feet out from under it, and it fell with a thud and crunch to the forest floor. Moving quickly and purposefully, he jumped to his feet and stomped the Liberados' head, killing it instantly. Almost forgetting about the other one, he copped a fist to his shoulder. He'd seen it at the last millisecond though, and rolled with the blow, effectively cancelling it out. He quickly took aim and shot the once-human in the side of the skull, its head shattering and leaving only the bottom half. It crumpled to the ground, blood pissing and spraying out of what once constituted its head. He took one last glance at the two defeated Liberados, then kept walking. He checked his watch again: thirteen minutes had past, almost time to head back. Then he heard the scream. _Jill's scream_, he thought, and bolted off in the direction of it. It _had_ to be Jill. She was the only one who'd gone in that direction, and he knew her voice intimately. He raced off, panting hard, running as fast as he could and not worrying about anything in his way. He heard a shot, and loud one, probably a shotgun.

After about thirty seconds of flat out sprinting, he stopped and looked at the ground. There was a body laying there, the top half of it missing from the chest upwards, but no Jill. He looked around the scene, using his flashlight, and saw a spotty trail of blood leading away to the north, so he followed it, keeping his weapon ready. He didn't like the looks of this. At the very least, Jill was injured. At the worst, captured. Wherever she'd gone, she'd need his help, and he wasn't going to lose her again. _I _can't_ lose her again, she's my partner. I'll die before I let anything happen to her._

His mind made up, he kept walking along, following the blood trail.

---------------------------------------

Leon had already killed two Liberados and heard at least ten gunshots coming from his left, so he assumed everyone else had experienced the same thing. He wasn't worried though, they could take care of themselves well enough. It had been almost fifteen minutes, and he was about to turn around. He hadn't seen anything interesting, which meant that apart from the stray Liberados walking around, there didn't appear to be any real threats, and the virus or parasite or whatever the hell it was hadn't infected anything else. He sighed in relief as he realised that. He'd read about the S.T.A.R.S. mission led by Wesker back when he'd first joined the government secret agency. Apparently, one of the survivors was a girl named Rebecca Chambers, and she was an aspiring biochemist. He wondered where she was now, and wished she was with them so she could tell them a little about this new threat. Then he realised that as a fellow Raccoon City survivor, she probably didn't want to come back and deal with it again. No sane person would. Did that make him, Chris, Claire and Jill insane? He decided not to think about it, and instead checked his watch again. It was just ticking over to fifteen minutes, so he turned back around to meet up with the others.

Just as he had turned, he copped two feet to the chest, hard. And they were heels, no less.

_Dammit, who wears heels out here in a place like this?_

He stood up, trying to sense any movement to aim at. He felt a leg sweep his feet out in front of him and a hand pull him backwards by the neck, and he fell flat on his back.

"Here's a little trick I learnt from your friend." Said a familiar female voice.

He turned his head to the right, where the voice was coming from, and two legs shot out to either side of his neck. He looked up and saw only a dress; it was too dark to see who it belonged to. A pair of thighs closed around his neck and squeezed hard, limiting the blood flow to his brain and making him light-headed. He grabbed the thighs and tried to pull them apart, but whoever this girl was, she was much too strong. It was useless. He felt a little humiliated by her; here was Leon Kennedy, US Government Agent and all round tough guy, being held totally defenceless by some unarmed girl. The woman arched her back and squeezed tighter, and Leon thought she was going to squeeze his head right off his shoulders. The pain was incredible, her thighs digging deep into his neck, making it feel like blood might actually seep out of his eye sockets. He fumbled for his guns.

"Uh uh uh, oh no you don't." She said, grabbing the guns and throwing them a few metres away.

He tried for his knife, but her ass was right on top of the holder, and he couldn't get it. All he could see was crotch and thighs; normally a good thing.

The woman slowly increased the pressure, squeezing his throat shut and making him gag uncontrollably. He felt sorry for Harman. His eyes bulged as the pressure from the woman's smooth thighs reached unbearable levels. It really felt like they were coming close to touching his spine, like a fleshy vice squeezing his neck out of proportion. She hadn't even needed to restrain his hands.

"Don't worry Leon, this won't hurt for much longer."

She squeezed tighter still, and he started to panic. Black spots crept into his vision and the pain absorbed him, became his sole focus: he was beginning to lose consciousness. He desperately tried once more to pry her legs apart, to no avail whatsoever. He couldn't even budge them a millimetre. The woman started laughing at him, which hurt even more. Then she leaned forward, and he saw her smiling face. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"_Ada!_" he squeaked, his throat being crushed too tightly to get a clear word out.

He couldn't breathe, he could barely move, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. He couldn't even yell for help.

"Goodnight, Leon." Ada said condescendingly, patting his vein-striped forehead.

She squeezed one last incredible burst of strength, so tight he thought she'd broken his neck, and then his world went black.

--------------------------------------

_That was easier than I thought. No wonder Claire Redfield used that little technique. Minimal noise, minimal fuss, maximum pain, and maximum humiliation. I wonder how she'd feel about me using it on Leon like that._

Ada brushed Leon's hair away from his eyes as he slept. She only had a few seconds before he'd wake up again, and she had to beat them to the labs. Claire wouldn't have found them anyway, she was heading in the wrong direction. Leon was too, but there was a secret exit out that way, and she couldn't risk him finding it. The Liberados had done a good job with Chris and Jill, and there was no way Chris would find the labs before she did. She'd use the secret exit. She'd slowed all four of them down sufficiently enough, and slowing Leon down had proved especially satisfying. She could have just shot him, but she didn't want to. She knew how he felt about her, even after all the things she'd done to him over the years. She just couldn't kill him, she didn't have it in her. Not that she cared about him or anything like that...

She heard footsteps coming from the west, and quickly used her grappling gun and launched herself on to a high branch. She looked towards where the footsteps were coming from.

_Shit. It's Redfield. Time to go..._

She fired the grappling gun again, and swung off into the distance.

----------------------------------------

Claire slapped lightly at Leon's face.

"Get up! Please, Leon, you have to wake up!" She pleaded, kneeling next to him.

Leon stirred, rubbing his very tender neck, then sat up awkwardly, unable to keep his balance for the first few moments.

"That's the second time I've been choked out today. I'm getting sick of it." He muttered, and looked up, registering Claire's confused look. "She used that scissor-hold thing you do. It fucking hurts."

"That's why I do it." Claire answered matter-of-factly. "At least you're okay."

She stroked his face gingerly and smiled sweetly at him, grateful that his attacker had only knocked him out and left him. But who _was _his attacker?

"I saw a woman swinging off on a grappling gun. Did she do this?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, it was Ada."

Claire thought for a moment. She'd never actually met Ada Wong before, but Leon had told her all about her.

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you later, right now we need to go meet up with the others."

The two of them got up, Leon collecting his guns, and walked back to where they'd started from, already a few minutes behind schedule. They jogged part of the way, not encountering any resistance this time. After fourteen minutes and twenty five seconds, they made it back to where they'd started.

"Chris and Jill should have been back by now. We're late as it is." Claire said, examining her watch.

"We'll just have to wait for a while." Leon stated. "If they're not back here in ten minutes, we'll go after them."

They sat on the ground, backs to each other and weapons drawn, watching for anything that might attack them. Claire was feeling a little restless though; she wanted to know more about Ada Wong. She seemed to have some sort of hold on Leon, and it troubled her. He didn't seem surprised or even upset that it was Ada who had knocked him out.

"So tell me about Ada." She demanded.

"What's there to know? She's the woman who stole the G-Virus sample _and_ the Las Plagas sample. She pretended to be someone she's not, and betrayed me twice. Even after helping me out on numerous occasions." Leon explained, slightly huffed at having to remember it all.

"And that's all?"

"Yeah, that's all."

Claire was starting to get a little upset. He was avoiding the topic, for whatever reason. Why wouldn't he tell her more? It's not as if he couldn't trust her.

"Bullshit, Leon." Claire spat, turning around to face him.

Leon looked at her, and saw how upset she was. He knew Claire cared about him, and for what it was worth, he cared about her too. But after his experience with Ada, he wasn't sure he wanted to be put in that position again. Not that Claire would do the same things that Ada did, he just always tried his best to not become too attached to _any_ woman anymore. But Claire and Leon had gotten a bit closer since the start of this mission, and he could tell he was developing stronger feelings for her, as much as he hated to admit it. She deserved an answer, if for no other reason than it would make it easier to let her down slowly.

"I started to grow fond of her while we were escaping Raccoon City." He admitted.

"I see...and you still are?" Claire tried her best to appear understanding, but she was hiding strong feelings of jealousy. She had no idea how she looked at the moment, but it probably wasn't understanding.

"It's funny, Ashley Graham asked me almost the exact same thing seven years ago, and I didn't tell her. She wanted to sleep with me and everything, and I said no."

"Are you crazy? A pretty girl throws herself at you and you said no?"

"It was a bit more complicated than her 'throwing herself' at me." Leon looked a bit hurt. "She'd gotten way too attached to me, after spending all that time escaping from the Los Illuminados. And after seeing Ada again, I just couldn't do it. I didn't want her to get hurt, and I knew it'd be a conflict of interest if I had a relationship with the person I was supposed to be protecting. So I let her down right then and there, minimal damage done."

"And what about Ada?" Claire was beginning to understand, but she still had to know if Leon still cared about her.

"Ada's the reason I don't get close to anyone." Leon looked at the ground. It was far more difficult than he'd thought, explaining all this. Especially to Claire.

"So you don't want to get hurt again, is that it?"

Leon kept staring at the ground. This was far too hard, and he was far too professional. It didn't feel _right._ He just couldn't admit it.

Claire reached for his hands, and softly caressed them with her thumbs. Leon looked up at her.

"I would never hurt you." She said.

Claire moved over to sit next to him, and held onto his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. He felt comfortable, more comfortable than he had in years, despite their surroundings and current situation. It was like a weight off his shoulders. Claire was a great girl, and if there was something between them, then he was a very lucky guy. He smiled at the thought, but still felt like he should change the mood. He wasn't _so_ comfortable that he could just get used to all this straight away. He looked down at Claire's legs.

"I've been wondering." He began.

Claire mumbled an affirmative, so he continued.

"How can you always wear shorts like that?" A grin spread across his face, and Claire leaned away from him a little bit in order to look at him.

"You have a problem with seeing my thighs?" She asked, one eyebrow raised.

"It depends on which angle I'm seeing them from." He said, remembering his latest experience with Ada and rubbing his poor neck.

"Well I happen to like short shorts. If you have a problem with that, I might just do to you what I did to Harman." She smiled seductively, snaking her calves around his neck slowly.

Leon felt a little tingle. A _nice_ tingle.

"Okay, but just lay off the neck breaking bit." He laughed. "And maybe wait until tomorrow. I think I've had enough squeezing for one day."

She giggled, removing her legs from Leon's shoulders. She leaned forward, and gave Leon a little kiss on the cheek.

The tension they'd worked so hard to alleviate returned in a flash as someone came running out from the bushes. Both Leon and Claire jumped up immediately, aiming their handguns, then dropping them when they realised it was Chris. He had a desperate look on his face, and didn't even take a moment to recover his breath before he started talking.

"They got Jill."

They immediately started running off after Chris, weapons ready. He led them north-west for a while, turning north when he saw a headless body on the ground. They ran for a long time, Leon and Claire becoming very tired. Chris wasn't slowing down at all though, despite having run all the way back to get them as well. After what seemed like eternity, Claire saw what she thought was a house. Chris slowed down about a hundred metres from it, then stopped.

"They took her in there. I think it's an abandoned park station. Come on."

Chris started walking cautiously towards the house. It was set in a small clearing, with large bushy tree branches from nearby trees forming a sort of roof above it. It was made entirely of dark brown timber, about thirty metres wide, with several windows and a single door, and a slanted tile roof. It was also quite overgrown with grass and moss, obviously not used for quite some time. They approached the door, Claire hanging back and aiming straight, Chris on the right side with doorknob, and Leon on the left. Chris opened the door quickly and entered, Leon following, both aiming and searching for anything to shoot. Claire entered next, and they secured the room.

The inside of the house was just as it looked like it would be from the outside: covered in dust. There was a kitchen on the back left corner, bedrooms to the right, with a toilet in the other corner. The rest of the room was taken up by bookshelves, a large table and chairs, an old TV, and some other useless junk. In front of the TV there was a couch and a coffee table with a rug underneath. Chris motioned for Leon to check the bedrooms and toilet, and Claire to check out the kitchen. He himself went to the couch.

Since there was no sign of Jill or anybody else in the room, and no other buildings of any sort in the area, logically there had to be some sort of hidden area beneath the house. Chris moved the table out of the way and lifted up the rug: nothing. Disappointed, he walked over to the couch.

"Nothing in here." Claire called from the kitchen.

"Nothing here either." Leon called from the bedroom. "Wait, I found some ammo."

Leon came out of the bedroom holding a wooden box. Chris moved the couch out of the way and noticed a lump beneath the rug. He tore the rug away and saw Jill's Ithaca 37 shotgun, still with five shots left.

"Kinda careless, don't you think?" Leon said, glancing at Chris.

"Yeah, I can't figure the odds of them leaving something like that behind for us to find." He said, picking the gun up and handing it to Claire.

She took it and slung it over her shoulder, into the specially designed holder on the back of her shoulder belt, which also held her knife at the front. Chris pulled the rug completely away and saw what he'd been expecting to find from the start: a hatch.

"Bingo." He said.

Leon walked over to it and stuck his finger into a neat hole near the edge of the hatch and pulled it open. Then he stopped and took his handgun out, aiming it around.

"Something's not right here. If they got through that hatch with Jill, then someone had to stay behind to put everything back in place."

"That's right! That means someone else is still around here." Claire exclaimed, taking her own handgun out.

Suddenly the door crashed in, revealing the biggest infected person Leon and Claire had ever seen. He had to be three metres tall, and all proportionate. He let out a huge roar, and came charging at them. All three jumped out of the way and recovered, taking aim at the huge Liberado.

"Leon! Magnum!" Chris cried. "Shoot him in the knee!"

Leon took out his Desert Eagle and quickly shot the big guy where Chris had told him to. The big guy dodged it though, and in the time it took Leon to recover from the recoil, the big guy was all over him. He squatted slightly, then rose, striking Leon with a huge fist right in the guts, lifting him in the air and sending him across the room. The huge Liberado stalked off after Leon.

"Leon! I'm coming!" Chris yelled, and bolted towards him.

He leaped into the air, hitting the huge Liberado in the middle of his back. The Liberado stumbled forwards a bit, but not enough, and swung his giant body around, hitting Chris in the chest and knocking him off his feet. The Liberado let out another loud roar, his head tilted back and arms splayed to the sides. He leaped into the air and landed astride Chris, staring down at him menacingly. Chris stared in horror at the huge man, expecting this to be it.

Suddenly a huge _BOOM_ came out of nowhere, and the Liberado's kneecap was completely blown apart, severing its left leg and making it drop to the ground screaming in pain. Chris quickly got up and saw Leon rushing over holding the Desert Eagle.

"Stand back!" Claire yelled, appearing from behind Chris, holding the Ithaca shotgun.

Chris and Leon paced backwards a few feet while the massive infected man writhed on the ground, holding its new stub, blood spraying out wildly and coating the floor in a dark, viscous hue. Claire leaned over him and placed the end of the single-barrel shotgun against his temple. She turned her head away and pulled the trigger, blasting the huge man's huge head into nothingness. Flesh, bone and blood coated the doorway to the house in a thick splatter, dripping thick chunks onto the floor. The floor in front of Claire was pooled with blood, bits of flesh adorning it and laid out in a triangle spray pattern from where she had fired. They all stared at it for a moment before anyone spoke.

"You've seen something like that before, haven't you." Leon said to Chris.

"There were Majini that big when I was in Africa with Sheva. Gotta go for the knees." He explained.

They climbed down into the hatch, finding themselves on a ladder. At the bottom was another room, much like the one above it, only pitch black. Leon pulled out his flashlight and shone it around. There was a corridor leading away to their right with a heavy-looking door at the end of it. In front of them was a wooden table with nothing on it. Leon placed the wooden box he'd found onto the table and emptied its contents.

"Five twelve-gauge shells, five fifty-calibre rounds, and eight forty-calibre rounds." Leon counted.

"I'll take the shells, since I've got Jill's shotgun." Claire said, taking the shells and putting them in her pouch.

Chris took the magnum rounds and reloaded his hand-cannon, then Claire took the forty-calibre rounds as well.

"Good to go?" Chris asked.

Claire and Leon muttered a yes, then they walked down the short corridor to the door. The corridor was lined with some sort of slime, and there were spiders and other bugs crawling out of the cracking concrete walls. Claire shuddered and stood closer to the middle of the corridor, hoping to avoid any bugs.

"Claire, we're about to head into a lab probably full of all kinds of horrendous shit, and you're worried about a few bugs?" Chris sniggered.

"I hate bugs...you know that." Claire felt a little embarrassed, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

The bugs stirred as they approached, crawling back towards the room, as if somehow afraid of the three of them. Then Claire noticed that they weren't running away from _them_, they were running away from the _door_.

Chris reached the door and turned the handle slowly.

"Locked, of course. Damn, if only Jill was here."

"Get away from the door, Chris." Claire called to her brother.

"Why? Don't try shooting the lock, that'll just-"

"-get away from the door, now! Something's coming!" She yelled.

Just as she finished speaking, they heard loud thumps coming from the other side of the door. The thumps got louder, then started coming from the door itself.

"That doesn't sound good..."Chris said.

The thumps got louder and louder, the door visibly moving with each one. Then the doorframe buckled and the door fell in, revealing the source of the thumps.

"Shit." Chris murmured under his breath.


	6. Lab Facility 3

**Remnants**

**Chapter 6**

Ada slinked along the corridor at a leisurely pace. There was no need to hurry, she'd already well and truly beaten Leon, Claire, Chris and Jill to the facility. Now that she was here, she could get on with her mission. In actual fact, her initial mission was already complete. All she had to do was hand over the data on the T and G Viruses as well as some info on some of Umbrella's B.O.W.'s, and await payment. Easy. But when the BSAA investigation had uncovered the power plant operation, Tricell had asked her to stay on and make sure they didn't interrupt anything. What they _didn't_ know was who was _doing_ the investigating. It had been purely by chance that Ada had found out, and when she had, she wasn't sure she wanted to keep doing it. She had a big soft spot for Leon, and she didn't enjoy breaking his heart. But on the other hand, the money they'd offered her to do it was nothing short of incredible. And if there was one thing she knew she was good at, it was detaching herself from her personal feelings when the money said so. So she decided to ignore however she felt about Leon and do her job. They hadn't specifically asked her to _kill_ him, just to make sure he and the others didn't interrupt. So far they hadn't, but that wouldn't keep them for long. And Leon never made a mistake more than once; he'd be on guard for anything involving her from now on.

Pissed off at her sudden inability to control her feelings, she sighed heavily and kept moving. She was supposed to rendezvous with some messenger from the top in the facility chairman's office down the end of this hall. She looked around at the hallway's limited decor, not really feeling surprised. Laboratories were usually sterile and plain looking, after all. What struck her as weird was the massive window on her left, covering an entire twenty metre expanse of the wall. She hadn't really noticed it last time she was here, and decided to have a look. About fifty metres below was a sort of testing facility for Tricell's new B.O.W.'s. She saw a few of them running around, smashing things here and there, but otherwise being rather patient and docile.

_Despicable,_ she thought to herself, almost out loud. _I guess those manager-types like looking at their own creations. No wonder most of them are single._

She turned away and continued down the hall, reaching the office in no time. The door was already open, and two men were inside, both wearing dark suits and sunglasses.

_Perfect, they're Wesker wanna-be's. How appropriate._

"Well, look what Umbrella brought in." Said one man; he was tall, maybe six-feet, and reasonably well built, with short brown hair spiked up and an olive complexion.

"Look at my face, not my thighs." Ada said, walking right up to him and getting right in his face.

"You talk pretty tough for such a little girl." The other one said, eyes firmly fixed upon her ass. He was sitting on a chair right behind her. Ada didn't turn around, just turned her head slightly.

"If you have something to tell me, just say it. I'm never in the mood to deal with self-important, chauvinist men."

Ada was quickly getting bored of this. If it was up to her, she'd have just shot them both when they looked down to check her out. But as it was, she couldn't get paid unless she dealt with them.

"But we're _always_ in the mood to deal with pretty girls like yourself." Said the first man, who started tracing a finger down from her shoulder, slowly sliding it down towards her belly.

"Pretty girls with fine asses like yourself." The second one said, grabbing a handful of her ass.

_This is too much._

Ada knew she couldn't get away with hurting them too badly; she was instructed not to. She decided to play it cool, and just embarrass them a little.

"I'd thank you both for the compliment, but..."

Ada smiled wickedly as she leaned forward seductively at the first man, placing her left hand on the man's thigh. She heard the one behind her moan a little, then laugh raucously.

"Admin never told us this meeting would be so stimulating!" The one behind her said.

Ada looked behind her at the second man, and smiled teasingly at him. She leaned more heavily on the first man, and raised her stilettoed right foot up, tracing it gently up his leg.

_Too easy._

"Watch out..." Ada breathed.

She jammed the stiletto heel right into the first man's balls, very _very_ hard, while she took a fistful of the other man's. After a few seconds of screaming, she took her foot away and drew her gun, gripping the first one's balls even tighter. She aimed her Beretta at the second one's head, losing her seductive smile and replacing it with a fierce frown.

"Like I said, I'm never in the mood for your types. So start talking."

The second man, the one with the gun in his face, stuttered a little with fright.

"O-okay..."

"We'll get right to the point, just _please_ let go of my cock!" The first one screamed.

Ada smiled, then slowly released him.

"One more sexist outburst though, and-" Ada gave him another squeeze, and the man's eyes just about exploded.

"I get the fucking picture!" The man said, falling to the ground with his hands firmly on his nuts.

"So?" Ada was getting impatient again.

"So your new orders are to watch our new prisoner, and release the Tyrant if they try and rescue her."

"What are you gonna do to this 'new prisoner'?" Ada demanded.

"We're gonna inject her with a special T-Virus strand. It's something we came up with recently. Supposed to be like what Harman had, only more powerful and with slight mutation."

"Slight mutation?" That usually meant more than just _slight_.

"Okay, okay. It's meant to make the subject grow half again bigger, but with much slower degeneration. Brain structure is similar to the Liberados."

_This should be interesting._

"Where?" She asked, turning for the door.

"Downstairs. Next to the testing room."

Ada turned and walked off, deliberately shaking her hips a little as she walked.

"One more thing." The second man said.

Ada stopped, not turning around to face him. She heard him approaching, then felt his hands on her ass. Ada shook her head in disgust. _What is it with this damn company and all these stupid men?_ The man's hands slid their way across her hips and up towards her breasts.

"You're easily the hottest mercenary Tricell's ever hired." The second man said, breathing heavily on her neck and crudely touching her.

"And you're easily the biggest asshole I've ever met."

Ada grabbed his right hand viciously, and took his index finger in her right hand.

"Don't ever touch a woman unless she asks you to. It's not very polite." She said, and harshly bent his finger to the right, breaking it.

"FUCK! You broke my finger! What's wrong with you?! Fucking _whore!_" The man stood there cradling his finger, his face red with anger.

"I told you, women don't like that sort of thing. Better you hear it from me." Ada smiled and walked off, leaving the two shocked men contemplating what had just happened.

She made her way to where they were keeping their 'prisoner', just in time to see a scientist injecting the unconscious woman with something or other. It was a glass vial, with a sort of bluey liquid inside.

_The T-Virus. But who's the woman?_

She walked casually around to where the scientist was standing, trying to get a good look at the prisoner's face. The scientist tilted her head up to try and witness any changes in her face, and Ada's eyes opened wide with shock.

"That's Jill Valentine!" She said, not quite believing what she saw.

Ada looked Jill up and down, surprised at how beautiful she was even after all the years of fighting against monstrous bio-organic weapons. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of wrongness, almost as if she couldn't go through with the mission anymore.

_This is terrible...that poor girl, they're going to turn her into a monster._

She wanted to kill the scientist and take Jill away from there. Find the others, hand Jill over and get _away_ from all this as fast as she could. It wouldn't be that hard, and Tricell had no way to contact her other than through the PDA. She'd made sure of that. But then...getting away wouldn't be as good without being paid first. She look at Jill's helpless, unconscious expression, then thought about how much they were paying her.

_Even if she _does_ turn into some sort of monster-freak, Leon will probably deal with it, AND Tricell, and nobody will be the wiser as to my involvement in it._

That was it, she decided. She'd wait around like she was told to, get paid, then help Leon out in whatever way she could before getting the hell away from here.

The scientist still hadn't noticed Ada, and continued to monitor Jill's life signs. He turned around to look at a computer screen and saw Ada just standing there, mouth open and staring at Jill.

"Jesus Christ!" he yelped. "Don't do that!"

"I'm sorry..." Ada mumbled.

"It's fine, just don't sneak up on an old fella like that."

He noticed Ada looked somewhat troubled.

"What's wrong with you? Forgotten what another woman looks like from the outside?"

Ada shook herself, and drew her gaze over to the scientist.

"I'm Ada, I was instructed to watch her."

"Ah, Ada Wong the mercenary." His eyes worked their way down her body, then back up to her face. "Dressed a little strange for a mercenary, don't you think? Tight dress must make it hard to move in, I would've thought. Not to mention the heels. Still, if that's your style, then don't let me stop you."

"If I wanted your opinion, old man, I would have asked for it. Who are you, anyway?"

"The name's Browning, like the gun." The scientist bowed low. "Used to work for Umbrella in Europe, then with WilPharma, now with Tricell."

"Uh huh." Ada didn't really care much for the guy's back story. "So how come I got paid to bring the data in? Couldn't you have just done that?"

"No." He said, turning back to the computer screen. "I didn't have it. I got out of Umbrella as soon as I heard about Raccoon City. I didn't _have_ any data."

"I see..." Ada trailed off, her attention caught by Jill's life signs on the computer screen. "How come nothing's happening? She looks normal to me."

"That's because the virus isn't working. And _no_, I don't know why. It's always worked within seconds in the past. She isn't changing at ALL!" Browning thumped the computer table, his wispy grey hair flying about in the air above his balding scalp.

Ada smiled inwardly, pleased that after all their testing and diabolical creating, Jill was _still_ beating them, and she wasn't even conscious.

-------------------------------------

"Go for the head, Chris. Shoot it in the head!" Claire yelled, ducking another swipe from the dripping tongue.

Chris aimed quickly and fired the M500, but missed to the left. The bullet shredded the giant licker's cheek, but missed the all-important brain.

"Shit!" He yelled, and dove to his right to avoid another swipe.

Leon pulled out his own Magnum and fired at its head, but missed when the creature leaped over his head. He dove forward quickly, somersaulting through the air and landing on his feet. The licker's tongue was fast though, and struck him on the shoulder, spinning him around quickly. He couldn't count how many times he'd spun, but it was a lot. He hit the floor with a groan and got to his knees, coughing. He felt the tongue lash out again, this time wrapping around his waist. He let out a shout of pain as it squeezed tightly, constricting his diaphragm and lifting him off the ground.

_Not again, why me?_ He thought as he struggled to breathe.

"No! LEON! I'm coming, just hold on!" Claire screamed and bolted as fast as her legs would take her.

She holstered her handgun and drew the Ithaca, aiming it at the Licker Delta's mouth and pulling the trigger. The shell blew the licker's head apart, spreading the thousands of pieces of it all over the corridor's walls and severing it's tongue. The creature fell heavily, spasming on the ground.

"Leon!"

Claire rushed over to him, and was horrified when she saw that the tongue hadn't loosened when it was severed. It was still wrapped tight around his waist, and his face was bright red. He sputtered what almost passed for a plea for help as he lay on the ground, trying to rip the tongue away. He drew his knife, but was unable to lean forward to see where he was cutting. Claire leant down and drew her own knife, carefully cutting the tongue. It immediately relented, flying apart like a broken elastic band. Leon took a giant gulp of air, sitting up quickly and putting his knife away.

"Are you okay?" Claire reached forward and pulled his face into her chest, hugging him tightly. "I thought I'd lost you that time."

"I'm fine, Claire, thanks to you. I owe you my life again." He pulled away and smiled.

"You can thank me later." Claire winked and helped him to his feet.

"I guess you guys can go look together and I'll go by myself then." Chris smirked. "I wouldn't want to separate a young couple, after all."

"Well, let's hurry up and get Jill back so we can all go on a double-date." Claire laughed.

"Hey, it's not like that at all. We're partners-"

"Don't lie, Chris. I'm your sister, and I've seen how you look at her. If you'd ever let your guard down, you two would be a happy couple by now."

Chris thought about it for a moment. _Maybe I should have told her how I feel._ He shook himself mentally, remembering the urgency of what they had to do. _I can think about all this AFTER we get her back. Fuck knows what they're doing to her in there._

"Let's go guys. None of that's going to happen if we don't get our asses into gear and rescue Jill." Leon reminded them. "We should all split up. If this place is anything like the other facility, our radios should work while we're in here. Call if you spot anything, and look for labs. They'll be trying to run some sort of experiment on her. Let's move."

"No, I'm going with you." Claire told Leon. "I'm not going to lose you again. And you might need my help."

Chris shook his head. "No way, Claire. Leon can take care of himself. We'll cover much more ground this way. This place is way too big and Jill could be anywhere."

Claire dropped her head, and mumbled an 'okay'. Leon cupped her chin in his hands and lifted it gently.

"Hey, I'll be fine. You just concentrate on your own safety." Leon said with a smile.

"I know...it's just..." she trailed off.

"It's good to know you're worried about me. When this is all over we'll talk properly. But until then, we've got a mission to complete." He kissed her forehead. "Call if anything happens."

Claire nodded, a smile finding its way to her face.

"Just don't do anything stupid, okay?" She grinned.

"Let's go, you two. Jill first, flirting second."

Chris' face had returned to its usual stern look, and he was already through the door to the facility.

"I'll go left. Claire, you go right, and Leon, you go straight."

The three of them took off, moving quickly and with caution, their handguns drawn. Claire took one last glance back at Leon.

_I hope he doesn't run into another one of those lickers._

---------------------------------------------

Chris ambled along another corridor, looking around cautiously. It was yet another office corridor, lined with plain looking rooms filled with computers and desks. He decided to take a look at one of them, just to see who they belonged to if nothing else. He entered one of them, and was surprised to see a Tricell employee seated at the computer.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" The employee said.

"I'm looking for someone." Chris said matter-of-factly.

"Well, you've found someone, I would say, hmm?" The worker laughed.

"Right..." Chris was getting a little agitated. Jill could be anywhere, and Tricell were holding her hostage. And this dickhead was making _jokes_. "Tell me where Jill Valentine is. Now."

Chris levelled his P226 at the employee's head.

"Hey, put that thing away. There's no need for that. I'll tell you where she is. Come around here and I'll open up a map."

Chris walked around to the other side of the desk and stared at the computer screen. It was off. Chris was about to ask the worker what the hell kind of a joke this was when he grabbed him by the shoulders. The worker's expression turned into a cold, vicious snarl, then his head lurched forward, teeth bared. Chris grabbed the worker's shoulders, trying to force him away. The worker tried to bite him, and Chris punched him in the side of the head. The worker fell away, hitting the wall and falling to the ground. He got up quickly and roared, charging at Chris again. Chris aimed at the worker's forehead and pulled the trigger, and the top half of the worker's head exploded. Bone, flesh and blood sprayed everywhere, dripping down the wall behind where the worker had slumped. Chris walked over to the computer and moved the mouse, and the screen flickered to life. A memo was on the screen.

_All employees are to stop the infiltrators if spotted. Tell them nothing about our plans for their friend, and make sure that none of them find the main lab at the rear of the facility. Twenty minutes are needed. After that, all employees are to return to the hall to participate in tests._

_Michael Browning, head researcher._

"Browning, huh. Now at least I know where to go. Better call Leon and Claire." Chris muttered to himself.

He pulled his radio out and held down the transmit button.

"Leon, Claire. All workers have been instructed to kill us on sight, then return to the main lab in-" Chris looked at his watch. "-eighteen minutes. The lab's supposed to be at the back of the facility. That's where they're holding Jill, and they're definitely conducting some kind of experiment, so we have to hurry. Michael Browning's the guy to see. Meet me there."

"_You got it." _Came Leon's reply.

"_Sure, I'll hurry it up then."_ Claire said.

Chris put the radio away and headed towards the rear of the facility at a fast jog, determined to rescue Jill before Tricell could turn her into some kind of monster.

_Not on my watch, Browning._

----------------------------------------

Leon reached the main lab and looked around for Chris and Claire. They were nowhere in sight, so he peered into the lab. He saw a metal operating table on one side of the huge lab, glass cupboards lining the walls, a dark area at the back that he couldn't see too well, Ada Wong standing next to an old scientist, and a metal chair in the middle of the room with a girl in it, strapped down at the wrists, waist and knees.

_Jill. I'm coming, just hold on a bit longer._

He took one last glance to see if anyone else was in there, but saw no one. Ada was holding her gun, though. _Take out the gun first._

Leon kicked the door down and quickly shot Ada's gun out of her hands.

"What's going on here, Ada?" Leon demanded, aiming at her forehead.

"Leon! I was just leaving-"

"Save it, Ada. What are you doing here. Tell me _NOW!_"

"We hired her. To give us some information. Now please _leave_ so I can finish this experiment!" The old scientist said.

"Hey, _I'm _making the demands here. Let Jill go right now, or I'll kill you where you stand."

The scientist turned around finally and faced Leon.

"Ah, agent Kennedy. So pleased to finally meet you. My name is Browning. Like the gun."

Browning bowed low.

"JILL!" Chris yelled from the doorway. "What have you done to her?! ANSWER ME!"

"My, my. What a temper! The tyrant will take care of that anger problem of yours." Browning teased.

"Tyrant?" Claire arrived just in time to hear Browning say the dreaded word.

"Ada, would you be so kind as to get rid of these three? If I don't have to wake the tyrant, I'd prefer not to." Browning said.

He grabbed another vial of the altered T-Virus and injected it into Jill's neck. Jill was still unconscious, and still didn't react. Chris let out a horrified yell.

"What are you _DOING! LET HER GO!_"

Chris aimed his P226 and shot at Browning's hand, shattering the empty vial.

"Quite a patience issue you have there, too. Okay, fine. I'll be on my way, then." Browning reached under a desk with a computer and pushed a button before turning to leave. He walked off towards a door at the back of the lab, the opposite way by which Chris, Claire and Leon had arrived. As he neared the back door, he flicked a light switch on the wall next to it. The back of the room lit up, and a massive tank came into view. All three pairs of eyes lit up at the sight: a tyrant. But slightly bigger, and its weak spot was a _lot_ smaller. Ada's jaw dropped as she stared at the monstrosity.

_Browning would kill me to make sure he got away? And leave me to face this...this monster? The Tyrant?_

Ada hurried over to her gun, picked it up and holstered it.

_Jill and Leon have the right idea. I don't care about the fucking money anymore, I have to help them stop this madness. I owe Leon that much._

"Hurry, there's not much time." Ada said to Leon, motioning him over to Jill.

The two of them worked quickly and unstrapped her, then picked her up.

"This way." She said, pointing at the rear door. "It leads to a garage. Follow me."

Chris ran up and took Leon's place, himself and Ada carrying her through the back door.

"Ada." Leon said to her. "Why should we trust you?"

"There no _time_, Leon. I'll explain it all later. Right now we have to get out of here. Before the Tyrant wakes up!"

Leon nodded, and all four made their way through the door, Chris and Ada carrying Jill. Claire jammed the door shut as tight as she could, and barred it with whatever she could find. They quickly made their way to the garage Ada had told them about, running through a stone hallway which was empty and blank except for a staircase on their right and a door straight ahead of them.

_CRASH!_

"The tyrant's awake! Let's go!" Claire yelled, drawing the Ithaca.

_Not that it'll make a shit of difference against that thing._

The door came down with a metallic crash behind them, just as they reached the other door.

"It's this one! There should be something we can use in there." Ada called back.

They ran through the newly opened door, Leon firing a couple of shots back at the tyrant. He aimed for its heart and connected both times, but the tyrant barely slowed down.

_New and improved, _he mumbled in his thoughts.

The garage was big. Very big. It housed a big semi, a few jeeps and an industrial lifter straight ahead of them, with shelves and cupboards lining the left wall and a huge roller door on the right. About fifteen metres above the lifter was a platform with a roller door at its back, probably some kind of loading bay. The lifter itself was of the kind that dropped to the floor from the roof, as opposed to the kind that lifted from the floor, and the controls were on the wall next to the shelves on the left.

Ada and Chris carefully put Jill into one of the jeeps, then Ada went off to see if any of them had keys. The tyrant bashed the door in, tilting its head back and flailing its arms. It roared with impossible volume, then charged right at Claire. Claire barely had time to register the attack before the tyrant was on her, knocking her backwards with its shoulder, slamming her into the wall of the high platform.

"Claire!" Leon yelled while firing his USP handgun.

"I'm alright, just keep shooting!" She yelled back.

Leon and Chris both shot continually with their handguns, always aiming for the heart, while Claire recovered and drew her own handgun. All three kept shooting at the tyrant, but it didn't seem in the least bit affected by any of their shots. Even Claire and Leon's larger forty calibre bullets weren't really doing anything. The tyrant dropped its shoulder again and dashed across the garage, this time going straight for Leon. He quickly rolled out of the way, but the tyrant was fast. It stopped and pivoted, slashing out with a clawed hand and catching Leon's left arm. He let out a pained cry, clutching his arm and running in the opposite direction. He holstered the now-empty handgun and took out his magnum, checking the clip.

_Seven shots left. Better make 'em count._

Chris did the same after his handgun clicked empty. He fired off two shots, the first spraying slightly wide and hitting the tyrant in the chest, the other striking directly at its heart. The tyrant staggered backwards, but recovered quickly and recomposed itself.

_This won't work. I better find something else to use, and fast._

"There's no keys!" Ada yelled. "I'm gonna have to hotwire this thing. Cover me!"

_Great, _Chris thought. He looked around in desperation, looking for anything he could use to topple the tyrant.

"Chris, the lifter!" Claire yelled, firing off shot after shot from the shotgun.

"Leon, the controls! Get to the controls!" Chris yelled, hammering another two magnum blasts into the tyrant's heart.

He moved his way in front of the lifter, yelling and waving at the tyrant, trying to get it to charge while Leon ran over to the lift controls. It wasn't working; the tyrant was more interested in Leon, and Chris had run out of ammo. He had nothing to draw the beast's attention. Suddenly Claire shoved him aside.

"Get the roller door open. I'll take care of this." She told him.

Chris ran off to the humungous door, found the controls and waited for the tyrant to charge Claire before he opened it. If he did it now, it might draw the tyrant's attention away.

"Come and get it, freak!" Claire screamed, firing the Ithaca 37 continuously.

The tyrant looked at her, the fragments hitting it in the chest, spraying litres of blood. It snarled, the snarl turned to a roar, and it dropped its shoulder again. It charged straight at her, so fast she almost didn't dodge in time. She landed heavily on her barely covered ass and looked to Leon, who had pressed the controls.

"It's not working!" He yelled.

Frustrated, he took a step back and fired the Desert Eagle at the controls, and the lift dropped from the top of the platform, landing with a clang and a thud straight on top of the tyrant. It yelled a pained roar, then slumped, apparently defeated.

"I got it! Let's get out of here!" Ada yelled from the jeep.

Chris pushed the button for the huge roller door, which was thankfully working, and ran over to the jeep. Leon got in the front with Ada, while Chris and Claire cradled the still unconscious Jill in the back.

Ada spun the jeep around in a tight handbrake turn and hammered the accelerator. Claire looked out the back and went white with horror.

"Oh shit, it's getting back up again. It's getting _UP!_"

"Take this. There's six shots left." Leon handed Claire his Desert Eagle.

They drove for several minutes as fast as the jeep would go, Claire keeping watch for the tyrant. So far it hadn't started pursuing them yet.

"Leon, get on the radio. It should work now, the comm blackout only affects a few kilometres from the facility." Ada said.

Leon grabbed his radio and called BSAA headquarters.

"BSAA HQ, this is Agent Leon Kennedy. Respond."

Silence.

"Repeat, BSAA HQ, this is Agent Leon Scott Kennedy, please respond."

More silence.

"I thought you said the blackout doesn't affect us out here?" Chris yelled to Ada.

"It doesn't. Something else must be wrong. I wasn't privy to a lot of their plans."

Leon adjusted the frequency on his radio, going for a broader signal, hoping anyone, _anyone at all_ could hear them.

"Anyone, if you're listening, this is Agent Leon S Kennedy of secret service. There's five of us heading east in a Tricell marked jeep, being pursued by a B.O.W. designated _Tyrant_ class. Position is ten miles north-west of Los Angeles."

Yet more silence.

"Dammit! Doesn't anyone monitor these things anymore?" Leon yelled, thumping the dashboard in frustration.

"Here it comes!" Claire yelled.

The tyrant was running straight at them impossibly fast. The jeep had to be travelling at least sixty miles an hour, and it was catching up.

"I don't believe it..." Claire trailed off.

She aimed the Desert Eagle as close to the tyrant's heart as she could, and squeezed off a few rounds. The shots made it turn and stumble slightly, but it kept coming. She fired off the remaining four rounds, each to similar effect.

"It's out!" Claire yelled, handing the gun back to Leon.

The tyrant was only ten metres behind them now, and closing. Claire picked up the Ithaca and leant over the back seat to steady herself. She fired the remaining shots, hitting it square in the head with the first one, the torso with the other two. The tyrant stumbled and fell, blood pouring out of the messy chest wound, but it got back up as if it had simply tripped over, and started running again. The tube was empty after that, so she fumbled around in her pouch for more shells. Empty.

"Fuck! I'm all out of ammo." She yelled, panicking.

Leon and Chris looked for more bullets of any kind, but didn't find any.

"I'm out too." Chris said.

"So am I." Leon called.

"I used up the last of my bullets before." Ada yelled from the driver's seat.

"Wait a moment..." Chris remembered Jill, still sleeping soundly next to him.

"Sorry about this." He said to her softly, and reached into her pouch to see if the Liberados had forgotten to relieve her of her ammunition. It was empty.

"Shit! She's empty too. They must have taken it all from her when they captured her." Chris exclaimed, beginning to panic as well.

"Check her pockets. She might have put some in there." Leon said, looking back at him from the front seat.

Chris tried to slip his hands into her pockets, but her pants were far too tight and he couldn't get them in. The tyrant continued to close the distance between it and the jeep. He ran his hands over the top of her pockets, trying to feel for anything inside. He felt what seemed to be several shells in her right hip pocket.

_Bingo._

Chris repositioned the sleeping Jill into a crude laying position so he could attempt to put his hands into her pockets.

_Damn Harman and his stupid pants._

After a few seconds of attempting, he finally got his right hand into her pocket, but ripped the pocket while trying to get his hand out of it.

"Here!" he said to Claire as he handed her the three shells he'd found.

By now the tyrant had almost caught up to them again, now no more than a few metres behind the jeep. Claire hurriedly put the shells into the Ithaca and fired just as the tyrant reached the jeep. The blast blew its head right back, and it back flipped, landing on its belly. But it got straight back up again and charged after them. It's face was now a mess of blood and muscle tissue, but the hideous, eternal, lipless grin was still there, along with the animalistic fangs that passed for its teeth. Within seconds it was right on their tail again, and Claire fired off another shot. This time it dodged, sinking one clawed hand into the back of the jeep and hanging on.

"Dammit, why won't you just die?!" She screamed, and fired her last shot at the tyrant's arm, hoping to at least disconnect it from the jeep.

The tyrant roared as blood spattered over its face, but it didn't remove its claw. Claire panicked, making desperate whining noises as she thought of what to do. The tyrant lifted its left hand and made a fist, aiming directly at her. In a moment of pure desperation, she took the shotgun by the butt and shoved it down the tyrant's throat. It roared in pain, releasing its claw and flailing madly, trying to take the gun out of its throat.

Ada kept driving as the tyrant got back up, still trying to get the gun out of its throat, but at least no longer chasing them.

"_Agent Kennedy. I see you down there, stay clear of the tyrant. We're gonna take it out, then we're gonna pick you up. Just keep driving, you'll see us."_

It was a man's voice; a Hispanic man's voice.

"You got it. See you soon then." Leon said, trying to figure out who it could be.

"That's Carlos. I'd remember that voice anywhere." Jill said wearily.

"Jill! You're awake!" Chris was thrilled and made no effort to disguise it.

"What's going on?" she asked groggily, rubbing her eyes.

"We're being pursued by a tyrant, and it's about to get its ass kicked by whoever's picking us up in that chopper." Chris explained quickly.

"Oh, I see. Nothing out of the ordinary then."

"_Buckle up, we're about to push the bang button."_ Came the Hispanic accent again.

Just as he finished talking, the man in the chopper fired an RPG at the tyrant, which was still trying to get the gun out of its throat. The flying grenade hit the tyrant and everything around it for fifty metres exploded in a massive ball of flames. The shockwave lurched the jeep forward a little, and Jill let out a surprised cry. Chris was holding her tightly.

"Easy there, big guy. I'm alright." Jill flushed a little.

"They injected you with something while you were unconscious." Chris said, worry almost seeping from his face as he spoke.

"It was a modified T-Virus strain. It was designed to turn her into a better version of Harman." Ada explained. "They explained it to me just before you all arrived at the main lab. But it should have kicked in ages ago."

Jill just smiled and winked at Chris, who smiled back.

"That's because I've been infected before. For whatever reason, after I was cured my body developed antibodies to the virus. So almost anything to do with the T-Virus doesn't affect me at all." Jill explained.

"That makes a lot of sense, actually. You're a lucky girl." Ada turned and smiled at her.

"What I don't get is how they didn't know that. It was Wesker that found out you couldn't be infected in the first place. Tricell should have known." Chris said, puzzled.

"Most of their records were destroyed after you two knocked them out two years ago. That's why I had to get it all back for them."

"So why are you helping us now?" Leon asked.

Ada didn't answer straight away.

"Just trust me, Leon. I've had enough of all this, this v_irus_. I'm helping you because I owe it to you, and because I don't want to see them destroy the planet."

Leon looked at her sceptically, but decided it could wait. Right now they had to get back to somewhere they knew, to regroup and resupply and await new orders.

"_Agent Kennedy, you can stop driving now. We'll pick you up."_

A moment later the chopper appeared in front of them, landing in the middle of the road but not stopping the blades.

"Get inside!" The man yelled.

He was tall, reasonably solid, and had several days of beard growth. He was also armed with two handguns. Leon, Ada, Claire, Jill, then Chris all got into the chopper and it took off.

"It's good to see you again, Jill."

"Thanks for getting us out of there. We owe you our lives." Jill said, and leaned forward to give Carlos a kiss. "Now don't go getting any ideas, Casanova."

"Don't worry, my girlfriend wouldn't be too impressed if I started hooking up with strange women. Even if they _are_ beautiful, strong women-" He looked at her pants, "with unbelievably tight pants."

Carlos grinned at her and she blushed. She looked down at her pants and noticed the rip in the pocket.

"What's _that_ all about, hmm?" She asked Chris, pointing at the ripped pocket, a wry grin on her face.

Chris blushed.

"We needed shells, and they were in your pocket. I couldn't get my hand out, so the pocket ripped. I wasn't trying to-"

"-of course not, Chris." Jill's smile widened. "But if you wanted my attention, well you could have just asked."

Claire started giggling as she watched the Chris/Jill situation unfolding. She was pretty sure she'd known about Chris' little crush on Jill for the better part of ten years. But he was so focussed on his job that he never admitted it, never even took the time to think about it by the look of him. But maybe she'd been wrong about that. He was thinking about it right now, judging by the shade of red he'd turned.

"Don't worry, tough guy. I'll stop making fun of you for the moment. But as soon as we hit HQ, I'm gonna start again."

Jill relaxed into Chris' shoulder, taking a short but well-deserved break. Chris just smiled.

Leon looked across at Ada, his mind still full of questions.

_It can wait. At least until we have to report all this._

"We need to get to BSAA headquarters. Can you guys take us there?" Leon yelled over the noise of the chopper.

"Sure!" came the pilot's reply. "That's where we were headed anyway."

She was young, maybe Claire's age. She was also very small, and very pretty. She had a cute voice.

"Is that you, Rebecca?" Chris couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Since when did you become a pilot?"

"Good to see you again." She called back cheerfully. "It's been thirteen years, and I've picked up a couple of new skills. We can chat later, Chris. Take a look out to your right."

Chris did as he was told, and saw smoke rising from a large multi-storey building below.  
"That looks like the BSAA building."

"That's because it _is_ the BSAA building. We just came from there. What's going on?" Rebecca yelled.

"I don't know, we couldn't get in contact with them, so we just called anyone. I guess that's why." Chris yelled back.

"Rebecca, I'm getting something on the radio." Carlos called to her over their headsets.

The two of them didn't speak for a few seconds.

"Alright, we're coming. We're gonna drop off these guys, then we'll be on our way." Carlos said into the headset, then turned to Jill. "We've been called away somewhere else, so we can't stay. We'll get in contact with you after all this is over. Something's wrong with this place, everything's gone to shit. We were out here to investigate a possible biohazard, then we heard your call so we came looking for you."

The chopper set down outside the burning wreckage of the BSAA building, and they all jumped out, leaving Rebecca and Carlos in the chopper.

"Good luck, guys. Stay alive." Rebecca yelled.

The chopper took off, and all five of them simply stared at the burning building.  
"What do we do now?" Claire asked, looking up at Leon.

He thought for a second, then looked to Jill and Chris. Chris looked back, then turned to face the building once again.

"We're gonna need ammo, then we're gonna call _my_ headquarters."


	7. City Outskirts

**Remnants**

**Chapter 7**

"Chris, you and Jill go and check out the BSAA building, seeing as you've been there before. See what's left of the place and try to find a way to get in touch with the local PD. They're not gonna know about having to contain the outbreak. Claire and I'll search around the area and see what we can find out." Leon told Chris, then turned to Ada. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna go look around, see if I can spot anything you and Claire miss. I'll try and get in contact with Tricell and see what they have to say about all this. Maybe they don't know I've left them yet; they might still tell me what's going on." She said, leaning against a street light that had been smashed and was bent on a thirty degree angle to the ground.

"Okay. Take this," Leon said, handing her his radio, "if you find anything interesting, let us know."

"Will do."

Ada took the radio and smiled at Leon gratefully.

"And Leon, be careful."

Leon smiled at her warmly and nodded.

"Count on it."

The five of them split off in their three directions, knives in hand. The hot blaze of the burning BSAA building made it difficult to see what was going on around the area, but all of them could smell the putrid, wafting stench of death heavy in the air. And after years of dealing with bio-organic weaponry, it was a smell they were far too used to, and far too experienced to ignore. There had been a biohazard outbreak in the outskirts of the city; the only question was who was responsible.

* * *

"_Chris, its Rebecca. Are you there?"_

"I hear you, Becca. Talk to me." Chris replied in his normal, serious tone.

"_We've just heard word from your HQ, be expecting a massive viral outbreak. We don't know any details, only that there was an explosion hours ago at the BSAA building and then everybody was dead. The only thing we know for sure is that everyone in a ten mile radius of the BSAA building is now infected. It could be an airborne strain like the T-Virus, but we're not sure at this stage."_

Chris was suddenly mortified.

"You mean you just dropped us off in a contaminated zone? We could be _infected_?!"

"_I'm sorry, we didn't know. We could be infected too. But until we find out more about this biohazard, we're not allowed to go back in to evac you. If you find anything else out, be sure to contact me. Carlos and I will try to get some more weapons on board this thing so we can give you support from the air."_

"Alright then. We'll be in touch, Becca. Stay frosty up there."

"_Will do. And again, I'm sorry."_

Chris put the radio back onto his belt, feeling slightly resigned.

_But I can't do anything about that until we get more intel. Stay cool, Redfield._

With that thought firmly in place, he nodded to Jill and they entered the burning remains of the BSAA building.

"If my memory serves me correctly, the first floor is reception, lockers, and storage. The second floor is intelligence, and the third floor is operations." Jill said, hands on hips.

"So we'll need to check the first floor for some ammo, then split up to take the other two floors."Chris replied.

"Right...well the weapons were all kept in a storage room out the back, near the garage. Let's go."

Carefully, the two of them walked past the reception desk, noting the locker rooms on the left and right. The BSAA building wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. The garage took up most of the space on the first floor, so the rest of it wasn't all that big. It wouldn't take them long to go through it before heading upstairs. They reached the door to the weapons storage room, and Jill looked at the bottom of the door hoping that there wouldn't be any smoke coming out from under it. There wasn't, so she opened it carefully, her knife at the ready. Nothing ugly popped out to try and eat her, so she entered. There were shelves on the left and right, along the walls of the rectangular room. Straight ahead there was a larger set of shelves that split the room in a sort of 'O' shape. Jill remembered that the shelves in the middle were for heavy weapons, the ones on her left and right were for the smaller ones, like handguns and magnums. She turned to her left to try and find ammo for her pistol when she was shoved in the back hard. She fell face first to the hard linoleum, just getting her hands up in time to break her fall.

_Careless. That was inexcusable, Jill,_ she told herself.

"Jill!" Chris yelled, and took a big step forward to punch the offender.

His punch landed solidly, knocking the Liberado off his feet and launching him into the heavy weapons shelves, which were..._EMPTY._

_That's not good. There weren't any operations in place that I was aware of, someone else must have taken those weapons. There were rocket launchers and all sorts of stuff there, if those pricks got their hands on-_

Something grabbed him by the neck, choking him and shaking him harshly. Chris was so surprised by the empty shelves that he'd completely forgotten to check for more hostiles. He was trying to wrestle the Liberado away from him when a leg shot out from his left and hooked around the Liberado's neck. Jill had grabbed hold of an overhead pipe and swung up, wrapping the crook of her right knee around its neck. She let go of the pipe with one hand to grab her right foot and swiftly snapped it to the left. The Liberado's neck broke instantly, and it slumped to the ground.

"Get down!" She yelled, after landing back on the ground.

Chris ducked, and Jill lunged forward with her knife now in hand again. She thrust it out, stabbing another one in the throat. The Liberado let out a defeated gargle, blood bubbling up in its throat and spraying around wildly as it tried to yell. Chris got up and looked around, but saw no others.

"Thanks. That was close." Chris said, dusting himself off.

"Let's just hope there's some ammo left in here that we can use. I'd rather not have to do _that_ again. Shooting is much easier."

"Yeah, agreed. It looks like someone took all the heavy stuff, though."

Chris pointed to the empty shelves in the centre of the room.

"That's not good. We have to tell Leon and Claire, and Rebecca and Ada."

"Okay, you do that while I try and find us some ammo."

Chris walked slowly around the room while Jill pulled her radio from her belt.

"Claire, Rebecca, Ada, we've got a problem." She said.

"_You mean besides a viral outbreak that might have infected us?"_ Claire replied.

"Yes, besides that. We're in the BSAA gun storage room, and all the heavy weapons are gone."

"_What do you mean by 'heavy weapons'?"_ Ada asked.

"I mean there was an entire set of shelves five metres long that was loaded with rocket launchers, grenades and automatics. They're all gone. I can't say for sure, but I think the odds are pretty high that the Liberados' took them."

"_Well, we haven't found anyone yet. But we haven't gotten very far either. We're still trying to find some ammo."_ Claire said.

"_Same here."_ Ada told them.

"_I haven't heard anything new, but I'll keep you posted if I hear anything."_ Rebecca said in her tiny voice.

"Well be careful. If you spot anyone, don't be surprised if they throw a grenade at you or start shooting thousands of bullets."

Jill clipped the radio back onto her belt and noticed Chris grinning as he came back around from behind the central shelves. His hands were behind his back.

"What are you so pleased about?"

Chris brought his hands back around and produced a Remington M870 12-gauge shotgun.

"That's the best thing I've seen all day. Just like the one I used in the mansion, too." Jill said, managing a smile.

She walked up and took the gun out of his hands, giving him a peck on the cheek before strapping the gun to her back holster. She saw him blush a little, and she smiled.

"So what else did you find?"

"A couple of boxes of nine-mill ammo and shells, and some bullets for the cannon." He replied. "I've already stocked up. I found a speed loader in there too, and there's just enough bullets for it."

Chris smiled, brandishing the M500 magnum.

_Boys,_ Jill thought, and smiled as she shook her head.

She went around grabbing all the remaining ammo, which wasn't much. There were ten shells for the shotgun and fifty nine-millimetre bullets all up. Once Chris had taken his share, there were only twenty five bullets between them.

"This is going to be fun." Jill said as she loaded up a handgun clip. "A whole area of town infected, and we've got shit-all ammo."

Chris looked sombre. He holstered the magnum and drew his P226 handgun.

"Come on, we better get moving. We need to find a way to alert the cops about this. Otherwise a whole lot more people are gonna be infected."

They exited the storage room and went straight for the reception desk. The locker rooms weren't worth checking out, the smoke was far too thick and the flames far too hot. Chris hoped that the phone at the desk was working, so he wouldn't have to go upstairs. He picked it up, but there was no dial tone.

"Damn. Looks like we're going up there after all."

Jill didn't react at all. It was as if she already knew what he was going to say before he even thought it. She started to move up the stairs to the intelligence floor when she stopped dead in her tracks.

"What is it?" Chris asked quietly.

"Run. We have to get out of here. NOW!"

Jill and Chris turned and bolted, running straight for the front doors. They were ten metres away when the roof suddenly crashed down in front of them. Jill screamed in surprise as she registered that their path to the door was now blocked by burning roof debris. She and Chris turned simultaneously, trying to remember another way out. Then they heard the footsteps – _dozens_ of footsteps.

"Shit, they're all still alive." Chris blurted, raising his handgun.

"And hungry." Jill added.

Just as she finished speaking, a wave of Liberados came down the stairs, all dressed in either BSAA uniforms or suits with BSAA ID tags. They took one look at Jill and Chris and decided it was time to kill.

"Well I'm not waiting around to see what they can do." Chris said, turning back to the door. "Fire a shell at the door, we'll leap over the crap in front of it and charge straight through."

Jill drew the Remington and fired off an explosive blast at the big double doors at the front of the building, and it promptly blew out the handle section. The two of them bolted towards the doors, leaping over the burning rubble that had fallen in front of it and crashing through.

"Which way?" Jill asked in a panic.

Chris thought about it for a second.

_Leon and Claire went right, and so did Ada._

"Left."

They bolted to their left, running down the empty, burning street. They ran for a good few hundred metres, away from the epicentre of the initial blast.

_Whatever Tricell used to blow up the BSAA building and infect everyone, it mustn't have been very explosive,_ Chris thought. _We've only run three hundred metres or so, and there's no fire down here._

"Stop for a moment." Chris said, putting his arm out to halt Jill.

"What is it?"

"There's no fire out here. So whatever Tricell blew up the BSAA building with must have relied on a heavy spread of the airborne virus." Chris surmised.

"So you think it might not last very long in the air?" Jill tried to think of a reasonable explanation.

"Yeah, I think so. Keep in mind that this isn't just a virus, it's a parasite too. If they infected the parasites with the T-Virus, it would still be a parasite. Meaning if they used an explosion to spread it, it wouldn't last very long at all. It'd be all over in a matter of minutes."

"And the rest of the spreading would be done by body fluid transfer..." Jill trailed off, thinking about it.

"Exactly. We need to find out exactly how far the infection spread, and cut it off. We can't allow this to get out. These Liberados are much smarter, stronger and faster than anything we've faced before. And if they've got the T-Virus in them, they're gonna be highly contagious as well."

Jill nodded sternly.

"Let's go then. We need to contact the others and tell them what we've found out, too."

Jill grabbed her radio and started talking.

"Claire, Ada, Rebecca. I don't know if you've noticed, but the explosion wasn't very large. Chris and I theorised that the actual spread of the infection would be limited because it's not a virus, it's a parasite, so it's not gonna last as long in the air. They're relying on the infected to spread it. We need to find out how far it's spread and make sure it doesn't get any further. And we need to _hurry_. We're dealing with people infected with the Plaga parasite _and_ the T-Virus so it's gonna be very, very contagious."

The others all said their affirmatives in turn. Chris and Jill went running down the road again, this time at a jog, keeping a close eye out for anyone infected.

"Chris, let's check out some of the houses." Jill jogged towards one of the houses on the side of the road, choosing one with lights on inside.

As she approached the house, a woman of about forty years came outside.

"What's happening? I heard yelling outside, it's been quiet for so long." She said, approaching Jill.

"You have to get out of here! There's been a biohazard outbreak, it might not be safe" Jill yelled.

"Biohazard? You mean like what happened to Raccoon City all those years ago?" She asked, suddenly looking terrified.

"Yes! Just like that! You have to get out of here, and try to warn as many people as you possibly can."

"Okay..." the woman trailed off, but kept walking towards her.

"What are you doing? Didn't you hear what I just said?"

Jill was flabbergasted. Why wasn't she running away?

"I heard you. Don't you think I would have run hours ago?"

It suddenly occurred to Jill that Rebecca said the explosion had happened hours ago. It was already approaching daybreak. The woman would have heard the explosion and gone running, or seen the Liberados. She'd either be dead, infected or far away by now if she had half a brain.

"Get back, Jill. I think she's about to change." Chris said, taking his handgun from its holster.

Jill stepped back a few paces, and suddenly the woman's right arm grew a foot longer. Acidic, slimy yellow goo spraying everywhere as her skin was dissolved, revealing darkened muscle tissue. Long claws sprouted from where her hand used to be, and then _all_ of her skin started to melt away. She grew bulkier, her muscle tissue expanding, and more acidic slime sprayed, narrowly missing Jill. The woman was screaming; a violent, gurgling scream that reeked of pain-racked pleasure. Jill watched in stunned horror as the woman grew a foot taller, her chest heaving as the muscles expanded painfully. Then her left arm changed too, becoming like her other one. The only thing on the woman's entire body that was retained from her humanity was her hair.

"We should go. Now." Chris said, turning to run.

Jill was already moving, several steps ahead of him as they ran at top speed away from the deformed, clawed woman. They heard an ear-blasting shriek from behind them, and suddenly the monstrous once-woman had landed right in front of them, chest heaving and a sickly grin on her face.

* * *

"Jill's not answering her radio. Neither is Chris." Claire said sadly, putting the radio back onto her belt.

"We'll have to go look for them." Leon said. "They might be in trouble. But I'm gonna call Hunnigan first and see if I can get some support here."

"Sure." Claire said casually, leaning against a brick building and rubbing her sore thighs.

She suddenly remembered how long it had been since she's taken a rest.

_I can't wait to take a nice hot shower._ She looked across at Leon as he fiddled with his PDA, and smiled to herself.

_Maybe with him._

She waited patiently for Leon to finish making the call, mindlessly adjusting her vest and tiny shorts, then re-tying her ponytail. Then she realised how ridiculous she was being.

_I'm in an area that's just been blasted to shit by an evil pharmaceutical conglomerate, all the people in the area are infected and trying to kill me, Jill and Chris aren't responding, and I'm worried about what Leon's gonna think of my appearance? Get a grip, Claire._

Leon smiled when the PDA's screen showed a moderate signal coming through.

_Good enough,_ he thought.

"_Leon, what's happening over there?"_ Hunnigan asked as her face appeared on the little screen.

"Hunnigan. There's been an outbreak here in the city and the BSAA headquarters are down. We can't get in touch with any of the local police, and we've just lost contact with Chris and Jill. We're gonna go back for them, but I need you to order an evac of one kilometre from the BSAA building, excluding the blast radius of five hundred metres."

"_And an air strike, right?"_ Hunnigan asked.

"Right." Leon nodded. "We can't take any risks. We've scouted around, and there are people who aren't infected from five hundred metres onwards from the epicentre, but everyone inside that area is history. And we need to move fast; this infection can be spread by blood."

"_Okay, I'll get right on it, Leon. You have twenty minutes to get out of there. The police are already surrounding most of that area now, so it shouldn't take them long to get everyone out. Try and make it to the southern edge of the blast radius and give the police a hand in getting everyone out. And good luck finding Jill and Chris."_

"Thanks, Hunnigan."

"_You owe me, Leon."_

Leon looked at his watch: 6:05am.

"We need to warn Ada and Rebecca, then go and get the others." Leon said, putting the PDA away.

"Right."

Claire took the radio out and started talking as they ran back the way they came, hopefully towards Chris and Jill.

"Ada, we've got twenty minutes before this whole place gets blown away. Get to the southern-most area of the blast zone and head south until you see the police. We're going after Chris and Jill, they're not answering."

"_I'm already there. And I managed to get in touch with Tricell just a moment ago. They were sceptical when I told them I was here, but they still let me in on a little bit of what's happening. Chris was right: the airborne strain doesn't last long at all, and it spread about five hundred metres from the blast. They didn't say why they did it, but they _did_ tell me about a test B.O.W. they released here. It's been created solely to kill Chris and Jill. They've been watching them since they entered the BSAA building, so head back that way and you'll find them. I'm gonna stick around here and try to give the cops a hand. I'm too far away to get there in time to be of much use to you."_

With that done, Claire called Rebecca.

"Becca, make sure you don't fly over a one kilometre radius from the BSAA building. They're gonna fry the whole area."

"_Okay. We found something very interesting north west of here. Where can we meet you guys?"_ Rebecca asked in her tiny voice.

"We'll be at a police barricade one k south of the BSAA building."

"_Okay, see you then."_

Claire clipped her radio back to her belt, and was suddenly thrown to her left by a strong hand. She landed heavily on her hip, grazing her left thigh a little. Surprised and shocked, she looked up to see what it was, and almost died with fright. A huge, clawed hand had pierced the bitumen road right where she had been standing.

"Stay down!" Leon yelled, and took aim at the owner of the claw's head with his handgun.

* * *

Chris and Jill had been running at top speed for what seemed like forever. The once-woman was hot on their heels the whole time, and they'd barely kept in front. But now Jill was slowing down, and Chris was getting concerned.

"Jill! Keep running!" Chris yelled.

"I can't! These stupid pants are slowing me down!" Jill yelled back.

_Damn Harman, what a pain in the ass. Good thing he's dead,_ Chris thought.

"Chris! Watch out!"

Chris instinctively ducked, and the woman sailed over his head, landing in a crouch with her claws dug a few inches into the road, right next to...his _sister_.

"Stay down!"

Leon S Kennedy fired six rounds from his handgun in quick succession straight into the once-woman's head. It didn't even flinch in the slightest. Instead, it removed its claws from the road and walked straight at him. He fired the rest of his clip at the once-woman, and after unloading his fifteenth bullet it finally recoiled, screaming as its head became filled with the bullets and inhibited its ability to use its brain.

Claire got to her feet and ran towards the monstrosity, drawing a Benelli M4 shotgun. Jill saw what Claire was doing and drew her own shotgun, charging at the beast and aiming for the head. She looked at Claire briefly and nodded, and they pulled the triggers of their guns. Just as they pulled the triggers, the woman-beast pushed off the road with its powerful legs and leaped twenty feet into the air, making the shotguns spray into the road harmlessly. The beast kicked out with its two legs as it landed, kicking Claire and Jill into the road. They cried out in unison, their backs hitting the bitumen hard.

Chris seethed when he saw them both get hurt. He drew his magnum and pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, blasting chunks of skull and muscle tissue away from the monster's head. It screamed in furious agony, holding its head where Chris had blown parts of it off. The beast fell to its knees, still screaming. Chris prepared to fire again, and the beast took its hands away from its head, revealing the exposed brain tissue and flowing river of blood leaking from its wounds, trickling in a thick stream down the sides of its head. It didn't look hurt thought, just furious. Before Chris could make sense of it all and fire the magnum again, the beast brought its right hand back, then swung it forwards, releasing one of its claws. It shot straight out at him, piercing his left shoulder as he attempted to dodge. He grunted, grabbing the shoulder and applying quick pressure, dropping the M500 in the process.

The woman-beast smiled a hideous grin, blood still flowing freely from the holes in its mutated skull, and began to walk towards Chris, stepping over the limp and unconscious bodies of his partner and his sister. Chris fumbled for his magnum on the ground, knowing the handgun wouldn't do shit. He found it and grabbed it, never taking his eyes off the beast for a moment. Just as his fingers closed around the handgrip, the beast raced forward in a blur and stepped on his arm, forcing him to release the hand-cannon and pinning him to the road. It roared triumphantly, bringing its right arm back for a decapitating blow. Chris just grinned and gestured behind the beast. It turned around, and had its head and shoulders promptly blown away in a shower of sticky flesh and bright red blood.

"Hasta luego, motherfucker."

Leon was standing behind the fallen body of the once-woman, Remington M870 in one hand, Benelli M4 in the other.

"Thanks, man." Chris said, then ran over to Jill and Claire.

Leon picked Claire's head up off the ground, cradling it in his arms, stroking her hair.

"Claire, Claire wake up!"

She didn't stir, so Leon lightly slapped her face a few times.

"Did we win?" She asked groggily.

Leon smiled and laughed, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand.

"Yeah, that thing's long gone. Take a look." He pointed to the headless, shoulder-less corpse a few metres away.

Claire raised her eyebrows, then quickly turned away, totally grossed out.

"That's...impressive." She said.

Chris had roused Jill, and were enjoying a similar moment when Claire's radio went off.

"_Claire! Leon, where are you? You've only got two minutes left before this place goes nova! Get the hell out of there!"_

Leon looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty-three minutes past six.

_Shit._

"We're coming, Ada."

"We need a car. We'll never get there in time on foot." Jill said.

"I'll go inside one of the houses and try to find a set of keys. There's gotta be at least one car around here." Claire suggested.

"Okay, I'll go with you." Chris said. "You two, stay here in case there are any more surprises."

Leon and Jill nodded and drew their handguns, then Chris and Claire raced towards the closest house with a car out the front. Chris ran at full pace at the door, jumping into the air and giving it an almighty kick. The door flew back and the two raced inside.

Claire looked at her watch: 6:23:20.

There was small table with a couple of hats on it, and some coats hanging by hooks above them. Chris swept the contents onto the floor, not hearing anything metallic.

Claire ran into a kitchen area, looking around for anywhere someone might keep keys, but saw nothing. The place was extraordinarily tidy, and nothing was out of place.

Straight down the white-walled hallway from the front door was a master bedroom, and Chris was sweeping the contents of everything onto the ground. Still there were no keys.

6:23:50.

_Come on, come ON! Where the fuck are the damn keys?!_

Claire raced into a living room, pushing everything off a coffee table in front of a big plasma TV, mostly magazines and newspapers. Then she heard the magical _chink_ sound of keys hitting the carpet.

"CHRIS! I'VE FOUND THEM!"

6:24:04.

"Let's roll, then."

The two of them bolted out the front door as fast as they could possibly go, turning left one-hundred and eighty degrees to the house's car port, where an old GMC truck was parked.

"Chris! Look!"

Claire pointed at the sky in the distance, and saw a very small object streaking towards them, a tiny tail of efflux trailing it.

"Here it comes..."

Chris opened the driver's side door, got in and leaned over to unlock the passenger door for Claire. Jill and Leon came running up behind them.

"It's only a two-seater, you guys ride in the tray." Chris yelled back to them.

They jumped in without hesitation, and Chris fired the ignition. It started first time.

_I love you too, old girl, _Chris mentally kissed the car as he hammered the accelerator. The car lurched backwards and onto the empty street, Leon and Jill bouncing painfully around in the tray, holding on for dear life as Chris recklessly sped away towards the safety of the Police line.

6:24:34.

Chris checked the speedometer as he floored the truck's pedal, the truck in fourth and revving high. It read ninety miles per hour.

"There's the police line! We're almost there! We're gonna make it!" Claire yelled excitedly.

6:24:53.

Chris eased the brakes on, slowing to a reasonable speed before hammering the brake pedal and engaging the handbrake. The truck skidded sideways and smashed through a rough police barrier.

Then the sky and the entire horizon erupted in a fierce, searing flash that wiped out everything. The shockwave blew the truck away and it rolled for several metres, the Redfields still inside.

* * *

Jill looked around and spotted Leon a few metres away, already on his feet and rushing towards the overturned truck.

"They're inside!" He yelled.

As he spoke, half a dozen cops came running up to see what had happened.

Leon went to the passenger side door of the upside-down truck and tried to open it, but it was jarred shut from the impact of the rolling.

"Jill, give me a hand here."

She went around to where Leon was waiting, and placed her hands on the window frame of the door.

"On three." Leon said. "One, two, _three!_"

On the count of three, Jill and Leon pulled the door with all their strength. At first it didn't move much, but after a little help from a couple of the cops, the hinges gave way and the door cracked open with an ear-splitting shriek. Leon quickly reached inside and unbuckled Claire's seat belt, being careful to catch her as she fell from her awkward position.

"How about a little help over here, too?" Chris yelled from the driver's seat.

All six of the policemen went to Chris' aide and helped him out of the truck. He got out and shook himself off, checking his weapons first, then his body for injuries.

"Are you okay?"

Jill put her hands on his chest and stood close to him, looking up at him with concerned eyes. Chris smiled strongly.

"I'm fine, thanks. Couple of bruises, that's all."

* * *

Claire opened her eyes and looked around. All she saw was burning. Fire was coming from every facet of everywhere she could see. Nearby buildings were mostly intact, minus the fire, but the ones in the distance were all but destroyed. Roofs were completely gone, second storeys were ripped in half, and flames came from everywhere. And the truck was useless

"Oh my god..." she whispered.

"Welcome back."

Startled, she turned around to see that Leon was sitting next to her, leaning against a brick wall. She looked down, and saw that she too was sitting and leaning against the very same wall. And in the opposite direction to which she'd first been looking, everything was totally normal. Normal shops and houses, normal cars parked on the roadside, normal people walking around.

"You got me out first, didn't you." She smiled knowingly.

"I may have."

Leon smiled back, and Claire rested her head on his shoulder.

"_Leon, we're coming in. Make some room down there for us."_ Rebecca's little voice came over Claire's radio.

"Okay, hold on." He turned to Claire, who lifted her head. "Sorry, I gotta take care of this."

"I'll give you a hand." She said, getting to her feet.

"No, it's okay. I can handle it, you just rest for a moment." Leon said, ushering her back down.

Claire didn't know what to say exactly, so she just smiled a bit and sat back down.

Leon walked over to one of the cops who seemed to be doing the most delegating.

"Hey, I need to make some room for a chopper to come in and land here. Think you can help me out?"

"Sure thing, Agent Kennedy. I'll get right on it." The cop said.

They both moved off to push back the crowd of people who had gathered to see the spectacle. After a moment, Leon left it to the cops and went back to Claire.

"Hey, Leon."  
Ada appeared behind Leon, smiling tiredly.

"Ada." He regarded her with a nod. "You coming with us? Rebecca said she had something to show us."

"I've got some business to take care of." She said, shifting her weight from her left leg to her right. "But hey, why don't you come with me? We could get out of all this...this fighting. Go away somewhere, like we should have years ago."

Ada stepped forward and took Leon's hands. She gently stroked them, looking into his eyes with her most sensitive, genuine look. Somehow though, she already knew what he was going to say.

"Sorry, Ada. After Raccoon City, I made it my life to destroy people and companies with ambitions like Umbrella's. This is who I am now. And I've got a mission to complete here."

He took a step back from her and removed his hands from her light grasp.

"On that day thirteen years ago, I probably would have said yes."

He looked around at Claire and smiled, then turned back to face Ada.

"But not now. Now I have another reason."

"I understand, Leon." Ada said, and smiled sadly. She was letting her emotions slip through her careful guard. "I'll miss you, you know."

"I'll miss you too. And thanks, for everything. I know how many times you've interfered with your missions and disobeyed direct orders just to help me out. I'll never forget it."

And with that, Leon and Ada said their final goodbyes – at least for the time being. Not being ones to show too much outward signs of emotion, they didn't make a big physical fuss of it.

_Goodbye, Ada. I'll never forget you._

Leon watched her walk away, wondering if he'd ever see her again. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do. The only thing harder was watching her fall thirteen years ago, unable to pull her up because of the injured arm that she'd helped to fix.

Just as he was about to walk away and do something, _anything_ else to take his mind off it, he felt Claire's arms around his waist.

"You alright?"

_No._

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"She's leaving for good, isn't she."

"Yeah."

He turned around and saw the sadness in her eyes, the sadness that came from concern for him. Regardless of the fact that Ada had asked him to go away with her, that he'd once had feelings for her, Claire was still concerned about whether he was sad or not. And he remembered one of the reasons he didn't go.

"I'm glad you're here." He said, turning around to face her.

Claire hugged him tightly for quite a few seconds, then winked as she pulled away.

"Hey, you two, you can cuddle on the chopper. Rebecca's got something to show us, remember? We have to go, right now." Jill shouted to them.

Sure enough, right behind Jill was a waiting helicopter, piloted by Rebecca Chambers, with Carlos Oliveira and Chris Redfield seated in the cabin.

Leon and Claire walked over to it and got in, and the chopper headed back the way they'd just come from. Back towards the facilities crawling with countless bio-organic weapons and the half-insane madmen who controlled them.


	8. Production Plant 1

**Remnants**

Author's Note: Sorry this took so long. I've been rather busy. Hope it was worth the wait!

**Chapter 8**

"We were wrong about the explosion. We did an air quality test, and it showed negative. We think that Tricell were just showing off. If they were really serious about infecting everyone, they'd have used a much more powerful accelerant." Carlos said matter-of-factly.

Jill looked across at Leon and let out a massive sigh of relief.

"I also took the liberty of restocking your ammo for you. Here,"

Carlos handed out several clips to them all, as well as some shells for Claire and Jill.

"Thanks, Carlos." Jill smiled grimly at him.

"Don't mention it." Carlos nodded and looked at the floor. "A few bullets is a small price to pay for the lives of billions of humans."

"So anyway," Rebecca started, "HQ told us to investigate the area just past where we found you guys before, and we spotted something interesting."

When she didn't continue, Chris looked at Leon, who shrugged in response.

"And?" He asked.

"And we almost got shot down by some clown with a rocket launcher. Then we almost got shot down again, about six times. I didn't get a good look at what they were protecting, but Carlos is pretty sure they were your Liberados friends."

"How far past the other labs was it?" Leon asked while checking his weapons.

"About a mile, give or take."

"You're sure it wasn't the same lab?" Jill asked her.

"Not positive, but we flew right over the other entrances and there was nothing there."

"Okay, set us down just east of where you got shot at, and we'll go the rest of it on foot." Chris told her.

"Right. We're almost there, so get ready. We're gonna have to get out of here pretty fast if we want the chopper in one piece for your evac." Rebecca said.

She brought it down quickly, just above the tree line but out of sight of the rocket launching Liberados. Chris, Jill, Leon and Claire climbed down a rope ladder as quickly as they could. Leon was the last one out, and Carlos grabbed his shoulder just before he moved out of sight.

"Be careful, man. They're protecting something in there. And after seeing that explosion, I think we can expect to see much worse come from them soon if we don't act quickly. I'll try and organize a perimeter, but it'll be slow going. All the cops are fixing up the explosion, and all the BSAA are dead. But I'll come up with something. You and I both know what bastards like these are capable of, so don't underestimate them. Good luck, man. I'll be taking care of you all from up here." Carlos yelled above the noise of the rotor blades.

"Thanks, Carlos. We won't let you guys or anyone else down. Count on it."

With that, Leon dropped down the ladder and landed next to the others, drawing his handgun immediately. He nodded quickly to the rest of the little group before Jill took point and led the way to what was almost certainly more facility connected to the last one they'd visited.

"What could they be hiding?" Claire asked innocently.

"Judging by that explosion, I'd say they're hiding a massive amount of airborne strain." Leon said without turning around.

"I was thinking the same thing." Chris said somberly. "They must have been using the BSAA building as a test. They know it works on a fluid transmission level, but they didn't know about the airborne strain."

"Yeah, but I'm willing to bet they wanted to blow up the BSAA building for revenge too." Jill called back.

"Yeah…" Chris trailed off.

They reached the edge of yet another clearing containing what looked like a bunker entrance. It was just a short, concrete staircase built into the ground, with half a dozen Liberados standing around holding rocket launchers and machine guns. Leon signaled for them to spread out and wait for his first shot as the sign to start shooting. They all moved off quietly and took firing positions in the thick shrubs. Leon waited ten seconds for them to find a spot, then took careful aim with the handgun and fired a bullet into the top of a Liberado's scalp. It exploded the top of its head right off, and it slumped to the ground pathetically, thick red flesh exposed and spraying semi-coagulated blood from the remaining half of its head in the bright morning light. The sound of his shot was closely echoed by three more, and three more heads were blown apart instantly. The last two remaining Liberados started panicking – or getting angry, Leon couldn't tell – and frantically searching around for the shooters. As they turned their heads from side to side, little pieces of flesh came off and littered the grass floor.

_Advanced stage of decay. The T-virus even affects Las Plagas…what are they doing? And why?_

These were all split seconds thoughts, and Leon shrugged them off as Jill came bolting out of the bushes towards the 'front door'. Leon and Chris quickly exchanged glances, and blew the heads off the remaining two Liberados. Claire appeared afterwards and all four of them ran down the concrete stairs and looked at a huge three metre-wide door made of thick steel.

"It's a blast door." Chris said, his fist lightly knocking the steel.

"Why would they need that?" Jill asked him.

"To hide in when the bombs go off." Claire said. "They're going to blow up everything, infect everyone. They need somewhere to hide until it's all over."

"Let's get in and mess it up before they start getting their act together, then." Chris said.

There was a single green button sticking out of the wall on the left, and Jill pressed it with her palm. Leon and Claire stood and aimed, Chris and Jill standing to the side and out of sight. To everyone's surprise, the doors just dropped down into the ground and let them in. When no one came rushing out at them, Leon looked around for a camera of some sort. He didn't see one, but that made it worse. Their guards had all been killed, so they _must_ have known about it. And if they knew, why wasn't anyone charging up the corridor with a gun, shooting wildly at them? Something wasn't right.

"Where is everyone?" Claire asked softly.

"That's what I'm thinking. Something's wrong, we're walking into a trap." Leon said.

"Keep your eyes open." Chris said quietly.

They walked slowly down a long corridor with few lights and metal walls. On their left they passed a staircase leading down, and straight ahead there was a set of 2 lifts on opposite sides of the corridor.

"Stairs or lifts?" Jill asked.

"Lifts." Leon replied. "We should stick together, this is too dangerous."

They walked another ten metres at crawling pace, and Leon spotted an inconsistency in the ceiling just above them in his peripheral vision. Then he heard machinery warming up.

_Trap._

"RUN!" he yelled.

Chris and Leon dove just as a massive wall slid down from the roof in front of them. Jill was already on the other side. Leon picked himself up and looked around. They were completely sealed off from the entrance.

"Where's Claire?" Chris asked, looking around.

She was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm going after her." Leon said, beginning to walk off.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Jill pulled him up.

"These guys don't know you two are alive. That B.O.W. in the city was sent to kill you both. You can take care of this crap, I'm going to find Claire." Leon snapped.

Jill grabbed Leon's shirt and pulled him in violently, preparing to yell at him, but Leon grabbed her wrist and held it tightly and unforgivingly, glaring at her.

"I'm going to find Claire. _She'd_ find _me_."

Leon released her and stormed off towards the lifts, pried the lift doors open with brute force and grabbed the lift cable with both gloved hands before jumping in, landing one floor down with a distant thud. Jill started to jog after him, but Chris stopped her.

"Let him go."

"But he's going to get us all _killed_! We _need_ him!" Jill pleaded.

"No, he's right." Chris started. "They don't know we're alive, so we have the advantage. We're the best the BSAA has, and they don't know we're here. They'll be watching Claire and Leon carefully, for whatever reason. So even though Leon's put himself in danger, he's creating a diversion for us. It's the smartest thing he could have done."

Jill thought about it for a moment, trying to come up with a reason why it was a bad idea.

"But four of us will have a better chance against-"

"-against something we could have avoided if we were in smaller groups. You're not giving the guy enough credit. He's not just throwing this all away on a whim because he likes Claire. Sure, that's a main reason, but he's also giving us the chance we need to figure out what's going on here by drawing all the defenses towards them instead of us. And in the end, what _really_ matters is stopping this Browning guy from putting whatever diabolical plan he has into place."

Jill looked a bit defeated, and Chris took her by the shoulders.

"Hey, I know how hard this is, and I know how much you respect Leon. But it's also the smartest thing he could have done at this time. He's giving us this opportunity, and I suggest we use it. And remember, we've done stuff like this before. We can take care of ourselves."

"You're right," Jill sighed. "he probably knows what he's doing, after all. I just hope he finds her, and that they find _us_."

"Don't worry, Leon's been doing this sort of thing for years now. He'll find us. And in any case, this is my baby sister and her partner we're talking about. I'm not leaving without them. But none if this is gonna happen if we stay here all day. Come on, let's move. We've got Liberados to destroy."

"Okay, let's go."

_Partners._

Jill thought what a strange word that was. It was used to describe so much, and at the same time could be used to hide something deeper, or to mislead people as to what their true relationship was. She and Chris had been partners for thirteen years, and she knew for a fact that it was _definitely_ hiding something deeper. Hearing Chris talk about Leon and Claire that way…

_Don't worry, you guys. We won't leave you here. I promise._

* * *

"Claire? Can you hear me?"

Leon called blindly down the corridor, not really caring if something popped out in front of him. He had to find Claire, and that was that. Tricell could send an army of Liberados after him, and he'd kill them all by himself if that's what it took to get past them.

He kept walking, heading left out of the lifts. The corridor looked much the same as the one on the floor above; all metal walls and concrete floors, not much light and not much to see anyway. There was a door to his right, the only one within sight, so he kicked it down and took aim. It was a security room, with dozens of screens mounted to the wall facing him. There was a tall chair facing the screens, too tall to see if anyone was in it. Leon kicked the chair and it spun around, revealing a Liberado with a stun rod. It got out of the chair with lightning speed and thrust the rod at his chest, narrowly missing him as Leon dodged to the side. He brought his fist down on the back of the Liberado's neck, knocking him to the floor, then took quick aim with his handgun and blasted a hole through its spine. The Liberado didn't move at all, dead instantly. Leon checked out the screens, trying to find a trace of where Claire might be. He saw Jill and Chris on one of the screens, moving down another empty corridor towards a much bigger door than the ones he'd seen so far, then they were out of sight of the camera. He didn't care anyway; they could take care of themselves, and his prerogative was to find Claire. With at least thirty screens on the wall, there should have been some indication of where she was, but there was nothing, and he was getting angry.

_Where are you…_

Leon impatiently tapped the barrel of his handgun on the desk in front of him as he scanned the screens left to right, top to bottom.

_What the hell is that thing…_

In one of the screens on the right and in the fourth row from the top, in perfect digital clarity, was the ugliest B.O.W. he'd ever seen.

_Even uglier than Saddler._

It looked to be at least eight feet tall, with six muscular arms, huge legs, and a pounding, semi-exposed chest. It also had rotting skin just like anything exposed to the T-Virus, and just enough resemblance to suggest that it was once human. It was in an electric cage, just standing there doing nothing. He couldn't worry about it too much, though. He'd have to keep a lookout, but he still had to find Claire. _Testing 1 East_, the screen's label read.

Leon made a mental note to stay away from Testing Facility 1, before continuing his scan of the screens. Something to his left and below caught his eye, so he quickly glanced at it. When he realized what it was, his eyes went wide and he leaned in closer.

_That's a lot of virus_.

It was a screen labeled 'Hangar South'. In the screen next to it, there were several large cargo planes. Leon took this all in, before shaking it off and remembering Claire again. He went back to the screen with the ugly B.O.W. and continued his search. The next two screens after it were labeled 'Testing 1 West' and 'Testing 1 North', with nothing of particular interest in them. Then he saw something strapped to a chair in 'Testing 1 South'.

_That's her. Now where is this Testing Facility…_

Leon searched the desk for a map of the whole place, but found nothing. Frustrated, he punched the chair, and it rolled off towards the wall, hitting a green button. A section of the wall slid down, revealing more buttons, this time with warning labels. He ran over to them and started reading. They were buttons to seal, unseal or purge two testing facilities, which was useless to him; a button each to disable the electric cages in the two facilities; and a keycard labeled 'GARDEN'. He took the keycard and quickly examined it, flipping it around. On the back was a small map of the second basement floor, with an arrow pointing to a certain room, obviously the garden the keycard was supposed to give him access to. He looked at the map, trying to find a room shaped like what he expected the Testing Facility to be, and saw two large rooms next to each other towards the north of the little map.

_Wherever this room is, it has to be south of those facilities._

Satisfied, he pocketed the keycard and jogged in the general north direction, passing several more rooms in the process. He turned around a bend to the left and almost ran into Chris.

"Whoa! Leon, where were you?" Chris asked after steadying himself.

"I found a security room, and I know where Claire is now. I also saw a hangar decked out with cargo planes and huge vials of the virus. I also found this."

Leon handed Chris the keycard.

"There's a map on the back. I don't know the significance of the garden yet, but I don't have time to check it out. They're holding Claire in a testing facility, and it's got a big, ugly B.O.W. in it. I need to get her out of there." Leon explained.

"Okay, we'll have a look. Is the hangar protected?" Chris asked him.

"I'm not sure. But the testing facility doesn't look it, so I'm guessing I won't need the keycard. I gotta go, guys. Claire's probably in trouble."

"Okay. Be careful, Leon."

"You too."

With that, Leon took off for the testing facilities at a fast jog, leaving Chris and Jill to their explorations.

* * *

"So we need to find that hangar, then?" Jill asked, hands on hips.

"Yeah. If they're hoarding all that virus, we're gonna need to at least check it out." Chris answered, looking at the map on the back of the keycard.

The two of them set off in the direction Leon had gone, but more slower and more carefully. Chris led the way, jogging at a leisurely pace past door after door until the hallway branched out into a T intersection, a huge steel double-door in front of them. Jill walked up to it and read a small inscription on the door.

"Garden." She read. "So where's the card reader?"

"There isn't one." Chris said.

He thought for a moment, then started walking away to the left of the door.

"You go the other way, we'll meet up on the north side. Look for that reader." He yelled back.

Jill dutifully ran in the opposite direction, but saw no card reader and no other doors. When she reached the other side, Chris was standing at another T intersection opposite to the one they'd just come from.

"See anything?" He asked her.

"Nothing." She replied.

"Same here."

"Well, we can come back to this place. We don't even know the significance of the garden yet, but we _do_ have to check out that hangar."  
"You're right. Let's go, then."

They started jogging away, again heading north, when they heard loud footsteps up ahead. Chris motioned towards a door on their left, and they opened it quickly and stepped inside. Watching the hallway from behind glass windows in a dark room, they were pretty much invisible from the outside. The footsteps became louder, and they waited patiently for whatever it was that was making them to step into view. Jill crouched on the floor, and shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. She edged herself carefully closer to the window, handgun at the ready. Then she felt something slide around her neck gingerly, almost teasingly, and she froze. Slowly, she reached up to touch whatever it was, and felt satin-like smoothness, like a scarf. Definitely material. Then it tightened with an intensity she didn't have time to register. She gagged almost silently, and dropped her handgun, reaching up to try and pry the satin thing from her neck. Chris turned around when he heard the gun hit the floor, and only had time to see that it was an eight-foot Liberado that was choking her, before he heard the window smash behind him and was promptly ripped through it.

The scarf tightened and tightened, and Jill thought she was going to die here. She flailed desperately at the scarf, but whoever was holding it was at least three times stronger than herself. Her arms were getting heavy, the lack of oxygen in her body taking its toll. Her head felt like it was on fire, and that heat was making her drowsy. She suddenly remembered her gun on the floor, and reached for it. The Liberado that was strangling her must have seen what she was doing though, and yanked her backwards, lifting her into the air by the throat at least two feet off the ground. Her eyes bulged and tears streamed down her face like a torrential rain. She almost felt like she was in too much pain to suffocate, then remembered her shotgun. She reached up for it, the shotgun strapped to her back in the BSAA-issue shoulder holster. Her arms were very weak now, and the effort it took simply to raise them was more than she could handle. Her left hand touched the butt of the gun, and she felt her way to the safety and flipped it off. The effort was tiring her enormously, and she knew she only had one chance to pull it off. She reached desperately for the trigger, and found it just as the Liberado tightened his grip yet again. Jill grabbed her hair to keep her arm from dropping as her body shook from the motion of the scarf being tightened. Her lungs were screaming for oxygen and her neck felt like it was being crushed in a vice. Her face was drenched in tears, and she couldn't see. With one final effort, she reached for the trigger again, found it, and with an enormous surge of energy, she managed to pull it. Jill was sent flying into the closed door, hitting it head first and collapsing to the ground.

***

Chris picked himself up, brushing the bits of glass out of his skin as he ran for cover. The other giant Liberado had thrown him through several doors and windows as he watched Jill suffering, unable to do anything about it. So far, he hadn't even managed to draw a gun yet. Now that he had a few seconds, he removed the magnum revolver from its holster and waited for his enemy to show himself. It didn't take long, the eight-foot Liberado just smashed through the wall of the room next to the one he was in and roared loudly before charging. Chris got up and ran out of the room, re-entering the one the Liberado had just come through.

_Gotta get him before he sees me._

Chris quickly and quietly came through the hole in the wall, watching the Liberado search for him.

_Perfect; he can't see me._

Chris smiled inwardly and pressed the M500's hammer down, aiming at the Liberado's skull.

_CLICK._

The Liberado turned around with incredible speed and slapped the gun out of Chris' hands.

_Shit,_ he thought to himself, before ducking a head-high blow and rolling away. He took out his other gun and shot quickly, not really aiming. The bullets penetrated the giant, but did nothing to stop his advance. He tried the same trick again, re-entering the other room and doubling back, hoping that following him would allow enough time to retrieve the magnum. Clearly, a handgun wasn't going to take this guy down. He ran through the other room, and just about shit himself when the big guy was standing right in the wall-hole screaming at him. Chris backed away as quickly as he could, never taking his eyes off the huge, infected man. He fired a few more times, the bullets sinking into the Liberado's face and spraying semi-coagulated blood everywhere, large flaps of purple-black rotting skin falling off his face around the entry wounds. But he kept coming. Chris backed into the same room, still facing the Liberado, and fumbled around on the ground for the magnum. He found it just as the big Liberado swung a massive fist at him. Chris ducked and picked the gun up, missing the blow and diving away. Quickly, he aimed the magnum up and pulled the trigger, and the bullet struck the giant Liberado in the top of the skull about three quarters of the way up. Instantly, the Liberado's head was blown completely off its shoulders and into the wall, the body sent flying forwards and crashing to the floor. Chris caught his breath as he watched the slimy, rotting flesh and bone slide down the wall and onto its former owner, headless and defeated on the floor.

He got up and ran to where Jill was being strangled to death, thinking it was too late now. She'd been fighting the other big one for a few minutes now, she'd surely be dead.

_She can't be…there's no way._

He reached the room and went to open the door, but there was resistance on the other side. He pushed more solidly and it opened, revealing Jill's limb body blocking the way.

"Oh shit JILL! Jill, come on, answer me! JILL!"

Chris slapped her gently a few times, lifting her head and checking for a pulse. He found one, so he cradled her and tried again to wake her up.

"Jill, wake up! Come on! Wake up!"

Jill shook her head groggily and blinked a few times, then started rubbing her neck.

"That fucking hurt." She said angrily. "I hate being strangled."

Chris laughed heartily._ What kind of woman almost gets killed, then complains about how much it hurt?_ He thought this to himself, then answered it. _A good woman._ He smiled and stroked Jill's hair away from her face.

"Thanks." She said.

"No problem." He smiled. "You might have almost died, but you did a good job on the big guy. There isn't much left of him. Take a look." Chris gestured towards the ex-eight foot Liberado, now two three-foot sections on the ground behind them. "Now let's get out of here. We still gotta find that hangar."

She sat up slowly and started giggling.

"What's so funny?" He asked.

"Oh it's just that I was kind of enjoying that moment. If it wasn't for the strangling part, the giants hiding in the shadows, and all the gore, it would have been romantic. You sure know how to kill a mood, Chris."

He laughed and helped her to her feet.

"I'll take you on a romantic holiday for a month when we get back home. You won't even recognize me, I promise. I'll dress nicely and everything. But we have to get there in one piece first."

Jill dropped her gaze, and Chris interpreted her expression as 'sorry, bad timing, I'll be good now'. Almost like a little girl who's just spilled dinner all over the carpet after trying to help her mother out. He felt bad.

"I'm sorry, Jill. I didn't mean to be a hardass. I promise I'll make it all up to you when we're out of here."

"It's okay. But you're right, we need to keep moving. I just…never mind."

Chris knew what she was going to ask him. He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips.

"Wow." She said, a grin spreading across her face. "I wasn't expecting that."

"But it's what you were going to ask, wasn't it?"

"Along those lines, yeah. That was a better answer though. _Now_ we can get moving."

Chris and Jill started jogging again, and after a minute or two they reached another set of double doors, these ones labeled 'Hangar'.

"This is it." Jill said.

"Yeah, and it's locked with a double card system." Chris noted.

He kicked the door casually.

"Steel doors. We're not getting these open without the keycards." He said, his face creasing in frustration.

Jill walked over to the card reader on the right of the doors and examined it carefully. It was a simple design, with the card reader positioned in such a way that the user had to swipe downwards, and a little LED under the reader slot that was currently red. There was a number above the reader slot, printed in small characters. _HS-02-02._

"Is there a number on that keycard Leon gave you?" Jill asked, a sudden brainwave taking over.

"Um, gimme a sec, I'll see…" Chris trailed off as he examined the card. "Yeah, here we go. Hotel sierra, dash zero two, dash zero one."

"Damn, that doesn't match up."

"It does with _this_ reader. Let's give it a try."

Chris swiped the card, and the little LED changed color to yellow, then back to red a second later.

"What does it mean? Why yellow?" Chris asked.

"Well, I've seen these types of card readers before. When it's a double card reader like this one, usually it goes yellow for a second to allow for the other card to be swiped before going green and allowing entry."

"So there's another card around here somewhere. Shit! Leon only gave us one card!"

"Wait…the card says 'Garden' on it, doesn't it? Maybe the other card's in there?" Jill surmised.

"I suppose I should have thought of that myself. I've been through enough puzzles like these over the years." Chris smiled. "Well, only one way to find out. Let's check it out."

* * *

Leon opened the door to Testing Facility 1 quietly with the barrel of his H&K USP. He knew there was currently one Claire and one huge monster thing in the room. And he didn't care about the monster thing at all. If it threatened Claire, it was as good as dead. He knew Claire was a big girl and she could take care of herself, but given that she was tied to a chair, she didn't stand much chance unless he intervened. Then it struck him: he'd just walked into a trap. Browning must have known Leon would come running if Claire was in danger, he'd have to. He'd obviously done his research, and if he'd been any good at it he'd have known a bit about Leon's personality. Leon was a joker, always throwing one liners around, even at the worst possible times. Levity helped him keep his cool. But he was also intensely chivalrous. He'd do anything to save a pretty girl. Not that he wouldn't risk dying to save a man, but it was more obvious with women. What Browning might _not_ know was that there were a lot of things Leon had seen and done that weren't officially on record. Operation Javier and his mission in rural Spain weren't officially recognized, so there was no way that Browning could have known about them. That would give Leon a measure of advantage, small as it was. On the other hand, Wesker knew about Leon's involvement in both cases, as did Krauser. But Wesker wasn't all that interested in Leon, he was more interested in getting revenge on Chris. In any case, the trap was set, and Leon was walking in through the front door to greet it.

Leon stepped in cautiously, taking in his surroundings as quickly as possible. It was pretty much as the cameras had detailed in the security room. To the right was the huge monster thing, complete with massive electric cage; to the left were more cages with various test subjects including rats, dogs and the like, all oversized of course; straight ahead were several steel cabinets and tables containing various melee weaponry; and behind him was-

"Claire! Are you alright?" Leon asked as he untied her.

"No. They took my guns. But thanks for getting me out of here. You realize this is a trap, right?" She responded frankly.

"Yeah, I know. You were probably bait to get me to fight that thing." Leon pointed to the huge monster.

"That's right. We should probably-"

"-Greetings, Agent Kennedy. It's so good to see you alive and in the flesh." Browning boomed from a door straight ahead of them.

Leon raised his handgun and aimed it at Browning.

"Why? So you know we're still able to get eaten by that thing?" Leon glared back at him.

"Thing? You really should have more respect for women, 'Agent' Kennedy. Especially ones you work with on a daily basis."

"What are you talking about?" Leon didn't move his aim away from Browning's forehead.

"Surely you recognize this face?"

Browning gestured at the monster's face, but got no response from either Claire nor Leon, so he continued.

"This is the face of your favourite pilot, Leon." Browning snarled. "Harman brought her to me, and I gave her a new purpose. With _you_, all she had was mediocrity and death. With _me_, she has _meaning_, and _power_. _TRUE_ life, Leon."

"Oh my god…Amy…" Claire said softly.

"That's _right!_" Browning grinned toothily.

"You bastard, Browning." Leon said quietly.

"_I'M_ the bastard? _You're_ the one leading everyone you spend time with into the depths of darkness. Look what happened to your partner, Jack Krauser? And what about your friend Luis Sera? Look what happened to _them!_ And you have the nerve to call _me_ a _bastard?_"

"How do you know about Luis?!" Leon yelled. Browning had struck a nerve by mentioning that name.

"Your dear partner Krauser told me _everything_. Told me how weak you are, and how _selfish_. And you still persist in attempting to end everything great about bioweapons? You don't have the right. I'll end your life here and now, Kennedy. Wesker's dream will come true at last."

"You're dreaming, Browning. I've stopped people like you before, and I'll do it again. Look what happened to Birkin, and Saddler, and Javier Hidalgo? Even Krauser. Bioweapons stole his life. They stole Luis' life too. There's no way you can win."

"Calm down, Leon. Don't lose your head." Claire whispered to Leon, noting how angry he was getting.

"Well, it seems I underestimated your friends Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield. They appear to be still alive. I may have to get my hands dirty after all. But it's no matter, your friend Amy here will enjoy keeping you company while I destroy your allies. It's too bad, though. I was just starting to enjoy Claire's company. But business is business, after all. I can't change the world if three of the best are after me. Sorry Claire, but you're just not on the same level as your brother. Farewell!"

"Bastard!"

Claire snatched Leon's handgun and fired several rounds into Browning's back and arms as he fled.

Browning moaned as he fell, but quickly gathered himself and ran off through the door he entered, clutching a glass syringe of some sort and a remote control.

"What was he carrying?" Leon asked while pulling his desert eagle out of the holster.

"Some sort of syringe, I think. He said he was getting his hands dirty, maybe he's going to fight Chris and Jill himself?"

"Pro-"

Leon's sentence was cut off by the sound of Amy's electric cage being turned off.

"Here we go." Leon said, taking aim.

The Amy monster woke up instantly and bent the bars of the cage open with relatively little effort, then roared loudly. She saw Leon and Claire aiming at her, and charged straight at them. They dodged to separate sides as Amy came crashing through, smashing into the wall behind them.

"Exposed chest! Aim for the exposed chest!" Leon yelled.

"Right!"

Claire blasted off a few rounds in between Amy's ribs, splattering blood everywhere and creating a gushing stream of blood out from the bullet holes, which sealed itself almost instantly. The ribs expanded straight afterwards, creating an airtight seal.

"Shit…I thought that might happen." Leon muttered. "They'll probably open up again. We've gotta be quick!"

Amy swiped at Claire, collecting her legs and tripping her over. She fell to the ground flat on her back with a grunt, knocking the wind out of her. Amy picked Claire up by the arms and drew back all four remaining fists, ready to strike.

"Leon! Gimme a hand here!" She yelled.

Leon ran underneath Amy's huge head and fired straight up into her chin with the desert eagle. There was no wound whatsoever, but Amy screamed in pain and dropped Claire, clutching at her neck and roaring angrily.

"I think all you did was piss her off." Claire said.

Leon looked around, trying to think of something he could use. He couldn't see anything interesting enough to pose a problem for Amy in this form.

"Leon!" Claire tackled Leon to the ground, narrowly missing several massive swipes of mutated arms.

They crawled out of the danger zone and got to their feet, running to the north side of the room with the array of melee weapons.

"Distract her! I'll try and find something we can kill her with!" Leon yelled.

"Okay, I'll try!"

Claire ran off and fired a few shots, yelling at Amy to follow her. Leon hid for a few moments while Amy chased Claire around, trying not to create a counter-distraction that would ruin his plan. He scanned the contents of the table quickly, seeing various stun rods and swords, but nothing that would be useful against something like mutated Amy.

"Leon! I'm out! AAAHHHHH!"

Claire screamed as she was sent flying into a cage containing a huge rat. She ran to the other side of the cage and hid for a moment.

"Here!"

Leon slid a new clip across the floor to her, and she picked it up just as Amy lifted the cage up and hurled it across the room at Leon.

"Whoa!"

Leon ducked instinctively, and the cage bounced off the melee weapon table and onto the floor behind him.

Claire screamed again as the four-foot rat took an interest in her, but Amy simply picked the rat up with two of her left hands and ripped it apart.

"Oh shit…not good…" Claire whimpered as Amy once again glared at her, towering over her as she raised several fists.

Leon spotted it just as the table's contents started littering the floor around him: an incendiary grenade that had fallen from one of the steel cupboards. Leon grinned and picked up one of the swords, then took off for Claire and mutated Amy.

Claire raised the handgun and fired a round into approximately the same spot as Leon had shot earlier, and Amy roared, again clutching her massive throat with all six brutally strong hands. Leon reached her and handed her a heavy sword.

"When I shoot, cut the hole as big as you can, as fast as possible." Leon ordered.

"But the ribs are still shut! We have to move! She's going to start swiping again!" Claire yelled frantically.

"Watch."

Leon pointed to Amy's ribs as she recovered from Claire's shot to the throat. Mutated Amy seethed in infected rage, her horrible exposed chest heaving. Then she roared again, and her arms spread wide, retracting her ribs and exposing the tender organs inside. Leon fired 4 rounds as quickly as he could into the general direction of Amy's heart, and the inevitable river of thick, bright red blood came from out. Claire jumped up and thrust the sword into Amy's chest, and Amy screamed in agony, clutching at the sword as Claire swiped it left and right around in Amy's body. Amy ripped the sword out and hurled it at Claire, who dodged just in time to avoid decapitation. Claire's eyes were wide with horror and fright as she registered that she'd nearly lost her head. Then she was being pulled to her feet and dragged with ferocious speed towards the north exit of the Testing Facility.

Leon had thrown the grenade into Amy's chest, and dragged Claire as fast as he could away from the blast. They reached the door and opened it, and started running down a corridor to their right just as the grenade went off. They heard the loud splat of gore hitting the wall behind them, and Claire stopped to look. Leon turned her around by the shoulder.

"Let's go. I don't wanna see that. Amy was a good girl, she deserves better. Especially after that."

Claire simply nodded. She knew somewhat how he felt, having been through Steve Burnside's mutation and subsequent death years ago.

"Let's go find that son of a bitch and kill him." Claire said, Leon's handgun at the ready.

Author's Note: One last chapter, and it's all over! I've had fun writing this, it's been good to make up a story based on a series I love so much. Admittedly, it was a shitload harder than I originally thought it'd be! I'll try and make a decent finale. Once again, thanks to anyone who read this fic, and/or said nice things about it.


	9. Production Plant 2

**Remnants**

Author's Note: Final chapter, people. Hope it satisfies everyone sufficiently. This was a lot harder than I initially thought, being that I'd never written a fanfic before. So I hope I didn't do too badly, and that you all enjoyed reading it. There can never be enough Resident Evil!

**Chapter 9**

Chris took a running leap at the door to the 'Garden' and kicked it as hard as he could. The door splintered around the lock and leapt open, Jill aiming into the newly opened doors warily waiting for something to pop out and get shot by her. When nothing did, the two nodded an affirmative and cautiously sidled into the garden.

It was big – very big. Not necessarily big in circumference, but it was rather tall. The room itself was roughly round in shape, but at least two stories high, with exotic plants filling it, many rising to the roof's full height. Several paths lead through the garden, but neither Chris nor Jill could see where they lead to. There didn't seem to be any real purpose to the garden; it was just a garden in the middle of a huge lab and testing facility.

"How the hell are we gonna find a tiny little keycard in here?" Chris complained.

Jill just looked at him and shrugged.

"Fine…you go left, I'll go right." Chris muttered, and they both went their separate ways.

Jill walked along carefully, minding the plants. There was something about them, something that didn't feel right. Perhaps it was because they were plants in a Tricell testing facility, but they made her nervous, so she kept her distance as best as she could. Occasionally a large fern would stick out in her path, and a little lizard-like creature would jump out at her from it, but they were all harmless, and so she didn't care. After batting away what had to be the twentieth fern, she saw behind it what looked like a safe.

"Chris!" She yelled. "I found something!"

After about twenty seconds, Chris' beefy form appeared to her right.

"Four numbers, huh." He grumbled.

"I thought we were through with this puzzle crap in nineteen-ninety eight." Jill said, arms folded across her chest.

"Same here…well it's got to have some significance. I'm willing to bet the other keycard's in there, and I'm also betting the code has something to do with it as well."

"That's how it usually works…" Jill trailed off, thinking.

Jill thought and thought, but nothing relevant came to mind at all. What numbers had they passed on the way here? She couldn't think of anything, except…

"Chris, what about the other keycard?"

"What about it?"

"Remember the other card reader had one different number to the ones on our card?"

Chris' brain ticked over, and he finally understood what she was getting at. He pulled out the keycard and inspected the numbers.

"Oh yeah! Hotel, Sierra, dash zero two, dash zero one. The other reader had a two at the end…let's try that."

Chris entered _zero, one, zero, two_ into the safe's digital combination lock, and a small red LED flashed above the display.

"That's not it, then…" He said, inspecting the card again.

"Try the other way round." Jill suggested.

He entered _zero, two, zero, one_ into the display, and again the red light flashed at him.

"Dammit!" Chris said as he thumped the safe half-heatedly with his left fist.

Jill snaked her way delicately between Chris and the monster fern towards the safe.

_He's gonna hate me for getting this,_ she smiled to herself, and made sure she used her most seductive look as she glanced back at him. She bent over the safe deliberately so that Chris could only see her ass, and entered _eight, nineteen, zero, two_ into the digital combination lock, and the little LED flashed green. She opened the safe and removed the little keycard, instantly pocketing it before looking over her shoulder with a somber look on her face.

"What happened? Wasn't it in there?" Chris asked desperately.

Jill looked down at her feet, inwardly smiling, and slowly turned to face him. She stepped closer to him, still looking down, then pulled the keycard from her breast pocket.

"Great!" Chris said, and tried to take the card as Jill held it in front of him.

Jill pulled it away and held it in front of her chest, smiling at him.

"C'mon, Jill. You're hurting me a bit here." Chris said, trying not to look. "So how'd you get it, anyway?"

"Easy." She smiled. "H is eight, S is nineteen."

Chris made a 'just missed it' face that showed more embarrassment than he actually felt, then Jill smiled again as she brushed the keycard against his chin.

"Let's go, we've got to stop that freak from causing another biohazard." She said, suddenly all business.

She put the keycard back into her pocket and took off for the north door, leading towards the hangar, leaving Chris spellbound.

_I thought _I _was the one who was trying to be serious…_

He blinked a few times, trying to figure out what had just happened, then gave up and took off after her. Just as they reached the exit and were about to open the door, it opened for them. Jill gasped as she watched one of the most horrible things she'd ever seen enter the door.

"Impressed?" It boomed.

Jill almost hurled where she stood. It looked like a man, or what used to be considered a _sort_ of man. It was at least nine feet tall, and muscularly proportionate. But instead of joints, it had _eyeballs_. Big, yellow, bloodshot _eyeballs_. And every part of its body was dripping and tearing on its own accord. Flesh was peeling off, then re-growing at a frantic pace. The eyeballs were dripping some kind of mucussy fluid, and everywhere the creature stepped, it left a trail of gore. It looked like it was constantly mutating, and the eyeballs never stopped moving. Then she noticed the wispy grey remnants of hair.

"You can't be…Michael Browning? That's impossible!" Jill yelled, her handgun now aimed at what passed as the creature's head.

"Not anymore. Now I am legendary. Never before has the world seen such a perfect product of viral weaponry displayed." Browning boomed in his newly unnaturally deep, organic sounding voice.

"Perfect? You think a self-salivating body covered in eyeballs is perfect? You're out of your mind, Browning. Just like Birkin and Wesker and all the others that came before you. You've lost it." Chris taunted.

"WESKER WAS A GENIUS!" Browning roared, and stamped his right foot down, making the ground shake beneath them, each eyeball growing slightly redder and more bloodshot as his anger rose. "Because of YOU, Wesker's perfect world never got the grace it deserved! Because of YOU, all of this wretched humanity still walks the earth, imperfect and uncontrolled! You are a slimy, pathetic piece of shit, only worthy of my time because of association! I'm going to enjoy ending your existence, _Chris Redfield_." Browning spat Chris' name like he'd just eaten raw ginger.

Chris just laughed under his breath.

_Another one to put down. This never gets old._

"Good thing you don't remember me, then." Jill sniggered, and fired a round from her shotgun right into one of Browning's several eyeballs.

* * *

Leon counted his remaining fifty-caliber action-express rounds: five spare clips and five bullets in his current one, forty in total.

"Gotta make these count, Claire. I haven't got much ammo left."

"Ditto, I've got fifty-eight left, and judging by what we just faced, I'd say they won't do much to help."

They shared a defeated look before Leon picked up his game.

"Come on. We have to find Chris and Jill, they might need our help. We don't know what to expect from Browning now, he could have pitted anything against them."

"Right."

Claire snapped her current clip back into the H&K and followed Leon down the hallway leading to the hangar. There were no more enemies along the way, which made Claire nervous.

"Something's wrong here."

"Yeah, I feel it too. If Browning was trying to stop us from doing anything, why haven't we been attacked yet? He knew we were coming."

"Maybe he's just really arrogant?" Claire suggested, but not quite believing it.

"No, I don't think so. He's too smart and too calculated for something like that. He'd know."

"So, what now?" Claire stopped walking and put her hands on her hips.

"Well, my instincts tell me that something nasty's waiting for us in the hangar."  
"What do your instincts tell you about Jill and my brother?"

"They tell me something's wrong with them, or we'd be hearing gunshots or something."

Leon flicked on the safety on his desert eagle and stroked his chin with it thoughtfully. It made sense, but it seemed unlikely that in the short amount of time they'd spent fighting with mutated Amy that Chris and Jill, two of the best in the business, could be overwhelmed by _anything_. If Chris could take on Wesker – albeit with help from Sheva Alomar – then surely he could at least last a few measly minutes against anything else.

"Leon, let's keep moving. If something _has_ happened, I don't wanna keep them waiting too long for our help." Claire said, interrupting his careless thinking.

"Sorry, you're right, we should really-"

Just as Leon was about to say 'get going', a massive eyeball poked through an air vent above them.  
"Whoa! Not one of those again!" Leon uttered in surprise. "What are _you_ looking at?" He yelled to the huge eyeball.

"Oh, that's disgusting! It's dripping everywhere!" Claire exclaimed.

"Lesson one: don't stare. It's rude." Leon said, then fired off a magnum round into the pupil of the huge eyeball.

The eyeball closed quickly with a sickening slurp, blood pissing out from between the closed eyelids, then the eye retracted back into the ventilation shaft.

"Let's go, before something else pops through-"

Leon yelled in pain as a long, slimy tentacle stabbed him through the left shoulder, bits of the tentacle's flesh falling off and splattering to the ground as it raised Leon through the air vent. Leon kept yelling as he was torn through the roof, the hole much too small to fit his whole body through unscathed. Claire watched in horror as he was dragged into the dark ventilation shaft, listening to the sounds of Leon's protesting boots kicking at the sides.

_Oh shit._

_CLANG!_

Claire looked up at the source of the noise, and saw Leon's desert eagle drop through the air vent and clatter to the ground noisily. She bent down and picked it up.

_Thanks, Leon. Don't worry, I'm coming._

Claire raced off down the hall, desert eagle in her right hand, H&K forty-cal in her left. Then she almost slipped over as she stopped in front of the doors to the hangar. She steadied herself against the doors, then looked down and saw what she had slipped on: two keycards. She picked them up and investigated them as quickly as possible.

_Double keycard lock system…brilliant. There's only one of me…_

Remembering Leon, she holstered both handguns and quickly swiped one of the cards through the left reader, then the other through the right. A light on the right reader went yellow for a split second, then disappeared.

_Shit, not fast enough._

Panicking, she tried again, this time going as fast as possible…and fumbled the second card and dropped it. Annoyed at her clumsiness at such a critical time, she bashed the bottom of her right fist against the thick double doors.

_That's not helping, Claire. Gather yourself…_

She took a deep breath, felt her chest rise and fill with precious oxygen, then exhaled. She brushed a wisp of long reddish hair behind her left ear and prepared to try again. This time, she held the left keycard at the ready while holding the right one out in preparation, and looking at the right reader.

_Now._

Without looking, she swiped the left keycard and jumped to her right, the right keycard falling nicely into place into the reader slot as she landed. The light went green, and the double doors began to open outwards towards the hangar. She quickly ducked behind the right door frame, still in the corridor, and pulled out the H&K. After taking another deep breath, she peered around the corner into the hangar, leading with the handgun. The whole hangar was dark; she couldn't see anything at all. Deciding it didn't matter, that Leon was the priority here, she stepped inside.

The first thing Claire noticed was that the sound of her footsteps echoed almost frighteningly. On top of that, it was so quiet that she could hear the leather of her boots squeaking thunderously as her ankles flexed.

_I purposely wore these boots because they _don't_ make much noise._

A tiny click from somewhere at least a hundred metres away broke her concentration, and she instantly aimed at the source of the noise. Then the entire hangar was bathed in blinding unnatural light. Claire shielded her eyes and squinted, still aiming the handgun, but now in any direction. It didn't matter, she couldn't see anyway.

"Welcome, Claire Redfield. I was wondering when you would arrive. Your friends have been waiting for you." Came a massive, bassy baritone from near where the click – obviously a light switch – had come from.

Claire looked up, still squinting, then opened her eyes wide in horror. Approximately one hundred and fifty metres away, between the still bodies of Jill, Leon, and her brother Chris, all tied to metal posts, stood the ugliest creature she had ever seen. She would have puked, but she'd seen something like it before.

_William Birkin_.

"I know what you're thinking, Claire. You're thinking about how powerful I must be to have captured three of the vigilantes responsible for the destruction of everything I've ever worked for."

"No way!" Claire shrieked. "Not a chance, you G-virus wannabe freak! Let them all go! Right NOW!"

"After you just insulted me? I don't think so. This is no G-Virus, you stupid girl. This is far greater than any single Umbrella virus. Don't you understand? I've taken what I did with the Liberados, and made it omnipotent! It's glorious!"

"You're sick!" Claire screamed, not able to take her eyes off the monumentally disgusting pile of rotting tissue building up beneath it. And the stench made her want to rip her nose off of her face.

"_YOU'RE _sick. All FOUR of you! You've spent your entire lives ruining mine! And for what? _Freedom_ of _choice_? What do you people do with your pathetic freedom anyway? You start wars? We even made _them_ better, _more efficient_, and you _still_ call us sick! Not today, little girl. Today I put you four to good use! Today is the day that Michael Browning achieves what so many have failed, even the great Albert Wesker!"

With that, Browning raised the same glass syringe he'd escaped from the testing facility with.

"This, my dear, sweet, ignorant little girl, is the Plaga parasite, infected with the G-virus. But unlike Birkin's attempt and subsequent failure at improving the T-Virus, this _IS_ perfect. As you can see, I'm in perfect control of my new abilities, and soon I'll be in perfect control of the masses as well."

It was then that Claire noticed the roughly two-dozen charter planes littered around the edges of the enormous square hangar. Then it hit her: the remote control Browning had escaped with along with the glass syringe. Browning was planning on using the Cessna charter planes to inconspicuously and automatically disperse his new disease. Then he was going to inject Chris, Jill, Leon and herself with the G-Plaga. She had to destroy that remote.

Claire took aim and fired, but her aim wasn't as hot as Chris' or Leon's, and the bullet hit Browning in the forearm, doing no perceivable damage.

"Haven't you worked it out yet? There's nothing you can do to stop me. You can't even hurt me. Look what happened to your brother and your friends? They all tried too, but not even they were good enough. What chance have you got?"

Browning started laughing a massive, bellowing laughter that sounded like an entire forest being uprooted all at once. Claire wasn't impressed at all, and she was seething with rage at this creature's insults.

"You're nothing compared to your brother, Claire. I did my research on you, and I'm afraid I'm not worried at all. _That's_ why I didn't capture you when I captured Leon, here. You don't _deserve_ to be a part of my new world. You don't even deserve to share Chris Redfield's name. You're just plain old Claire."

That was it – Claire couldn't take it anymore. She knew how Leon or Chris or even Jill would react: they wouldn't. They were far too practiced and too professional to get worked up over childish insults from an insane beast. But Claire wasn't a practiced professional. She was just plain old Claire.

_Plain old Claire who survived Raccoon City. Plain old Claire who survived Alexia Ashford's Code: Veronica. Plain old Claire who survived the Harvardville outbreak._

Claire smiled and aimed once more at the tiny remote in Browning's giant clawed hand.

"Plain old Claire's got a little surprise for you."

With that, she looked down the sights of Leon's handgun, steadying her hand as best as she could, and fired at the precise moment that the remote came in line. The bullet shattered the remote, and Browning's once-human face contorted in rage. New flaps of flesh fell off his rotting body like wet clothing, falling to the floor with several loud splats, covering the area with thick, bright red blood. Each eyeball on his body turned gradually from a bloodshot yellow to pure, seething red, like fleshy fireballs with a nucleus of pure evil. Browning just stood and roared while Claire returned to her all-business posture, removing Leon's desert eagle from its holster and aiming it and the H&K at him.

Browning charged at her with unnatural speed. She fired a few shots from each gun, and each time Browning dodged.

_He's as fast as Wesker._

Just as Claire was about to pull the trigger again, Browning was all over her. She shrieked in pain as Browning knocked her with his shoulder, sending her flying backwards a dozen metres, landing heavily on her back. She tried desperately to sit up, but the wind was knocked out of her and she could barely move. She rolled onto her back, trying to get up that way, and felt a slimy hand gripping her around her midriff, raising her into the air and squeezing tighter and tighter. She tried to squeal, but no noise came out; her lungs were still empty.

"Now you die, Claire."

Browning's voice was like a booming echo inside her entire body that filled her being with a kind of dread she'd never experienced before. Struggling to get free, Browning squeezed her tighter, and she could feel her ribs bending in his vice-like clawed grip. Browning hadn't noticed her raising the desert eagle, though – or rather, he didn't care – but it didn't matter. The last bullet to hit him had done less than nothing. Then she remembered Leon firing at the eyeball.

Browning produced a tentacle from his back, and it slowly moved towards Claire's face. The tentacle stopped at her throat and the tip sharpened. Browning's face contorted into what might have passed as a smile back when he was still human. Claire's ribs were burning now, she could feel them getting close to cracking point as she pointed the desert eagle at Browning's right shoulder eyeball. She fired, at point-blank range, and the bullet shredded the eyeball. Yellow slime like jelly flew everywhere, along with copious amounts of bright blood. Browning roared loudly, almost loud enough to make Claire's ears ring, and he dropped her to the ground. Before she'd even gotten her breath back, she started firing off round after round with both handguns into every eyeball she could see. Browning screeched as the eyelids closed all over his body, yellow slime and thick red blood coating the floor around him. He stumbled backwards and slipped in his own gore, writhing on the ground in tremendous pain. Claire took a few steps back and watched as she caught her breath, holding her battered midriff.

Then Browning stopped screeching and started laughing.

"What?!"

Claire couldn't believe what she was seeing. Just when it seemed like it was all over, and she could get the others and get the hell out of there, Browning wasn't dying. He was actually _mutating._ She watched in horror as all her efforts seemed to be in vain. Browning was increasing in size, growing almost twice as big as he was before. Claire's eyes darted around Browning's massive bulk, trying to find some way to put him down or at least slow him down, but finding nothing. All the eyeballs were gone now, and there didn't seem to be any more weak points.

"How does it feel…Claire…to be…totally helpless…watching your death…unfolding…before your eyes!"

Browning's voice came in deep, earthy sputters as his body mutated. His limbs were contracting, sinking into a now oversized abdomen. Several tentacles – Claire lost count at ten – started forming and flailing about. Browning's head had expanded to about a metre across, and what remained of his face was beginning to sink into his skull. In its place appeared a huge toothy maw.

Browning got up. He now resembled a giant, ten-metre insect with close to two-dozen legs. Claire was frozen in fear, unsure of how to move, and even if she could, what to do.

"…in the mouth…Shoot it in the mouth, Claire! THE MOUTH!"

Claire turned to her left, where Jill, Chris and Leon were still tied to metal posts. Chris was flailing around desperately, yelling at her.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot him NOW!"

Claire came to her senses and started unloading handgun bullets into Browning's oversized mouth. Every few bullets the beast would recoil, but that was it. She fired again and again, unloading and reloading, all the while being edged closer and closer to the wall with the door she'd initially come through, and she knew it. Finally, after her index finger was starting to hurt, she heard the inevitable metallic _click_ of the hammer striking where a bullet should have been. She pulled yet another clip out from her belt and tried to slap it in, but it wouldn't fit. Panicking, she looked down to see what the problem was, and realized it was an empty clip for the unmodified H&K USP she'd been using before.

_Oh shit…out of bullets…_

Just as she realized it, a giant slimy leg swiped her legs out from under her, then launched her over Browning's insect-like body. With a painful thud, she hit the hard ground. Her back was in immense pain, and she could hardly move.

"Claire! Cut me down! Quick! I've still got my weapons!"

She looked to her right, and saw Chris once again flailing helplessly, still tied to the metal post not ten metres away from her. She crawled over to him, trying to stand up.

"Hurry! He's coming back!" Chris yelled frantically.

Claire stood up painfully and slowly, taking her knife out of its holder and cutting at the ropes holding Chris helplessly in place. Just as she was cutting the last bit of rope, she felt another strike at her midriff, hitting her in the side, in the same spot she'd been squeezed minutes ago. She was sent flying once again, soaring halfway across the hangar and into the side of one of the charter planes.

Chris watched in horror as his sister slumped to the ground, this time unable to get back up. She was alive though, trying to roll onto her back, so he put his mind onto more immediate matters. He picked up the knife Claire had dropped when she was hit, and started hacking at one of Browning's huge legs. Chris severed the leg and Browning reared back, giving Chris an opportunity to run underneath him. As he ran underneath, he slashed through Browning's slimy, rotting underbelly. Browning screamed a terrifying insect-like scream as Chris emerged on the other side. He dropped the knife and took out his M500 magnum, and started shooting off Browning's legs. Each bullet severed another leg, and after reloading the gun and emptying it again he'd taken out almost half. Browning was constantly screaming and the rear half of his body was planted on the ground, all of the legs supporting it severed.

Chris reloaded the revolver again, counting eleven more bullets. He took aim again, and noticed that Browning had simply sprouted more tentacles to replace the severed legs.

"Did you really think…you'd win?" Browning's massive baritone taunted.

"Call me a fool, but you don't look or sound like you're winning." Chris said calmly. "In fact, it looks like my sister did a good job of beating you up."

"RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I will NEVER…..lose to that…GIRL!!" Browning's voice came in heavy, segmented rasps.

"Then lose to me."

Chris ran around to the front of Browning's body and unloaded all five bullets in the revolver into Browning huge toothy maw. The bullets penetrated through the his skull and out the top of his huge head. Browning roared painfully and slumped to the ground. Chris wasn't sure though, so he reloaded the magnum again and waited to see what happened. And sure enough, Browning's flesh began to heal itself, though rather slowly.

Claire finally managed to stand, and saw Chris reloading his magnum just as she heard her radio static.

"_Claire! Are you there? Claire! Respond!"_

It was Rebecca.

"Yeah, I'm here." She groaned.

"_What's your situation?"  
_Claire didn't know exactly where to start, so she just spoke. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Chris acknowledging her, and signaling that he'd stall Browning.

"Um, Browning injected himself with a G-Virus infected Plaga parasite, and he's transformed. Leon and Jill are out of action, and Chris is holding him off."

"_Is he really big?"_

"What?"

_What kind of a question is that?_ Claire wondered.

"_Is he really big? Like twenty metres big?"_

"Yeah, I'd say so. Why?"

Claire swore she heard laughter coming from the radio.

"_You have one minute to get everyone to the south side of the hangar. Make sure Browning stays on the north side."_

_The charter planes._

Claire panicked again.

"If you're thinking of blowing him up, then _DON'T!_ There are two dozen charter planes loaded with virus all throughout this hangar! If you hit them, you'll-"

"_-We won't blow him up. Just get everyone south except Browning. One minute."_

Claire clipped her radio back to her belt and made a mad dash for Chris, who was casually unloading bullets into Browning's mouth, stalling him.

"I can't keep this up much longer, I've only got three bullets left." Chris said.

"We need to get to the south side of the hangar. Rebecca's got something planned for Browning."

"Okay, you get those two, I'll keep holding Browning off."

Claire raced off as quickly as she could in her battered state to cut down Leon and Jill. She picked her knife up off the ground where Chris had dropped it and started to cut Leon down.

_He's injured…I'll need Jill's help to carry him._

Instead, she started cutting Jill down. After the last rope was cut, Jill slumped forward and collapsed into Claire's arms.

"Jill!" Claire yelled desperately, lightly slapping the woman's face. "Jill wake up! Quickly!"

Surprisingly, Jill roused quickly and started asking what was going on, then went silent when she saw Browning.

The two women cut Leon down and carried/half dragged him towards the south side of the hangar. Claire stopped as they passed Chris.

"Jill, give him your shotgun."

Dutifully, Jill handed Chris the Remington and a handful of shells from her pouch.

_Good thing that idiot Browning wasn't very thorough._

Chris shouldered the shotgun and started blasting away at Browning's mouth again. The shots weren't doing any damage; they were just keeping his regenerative abilities isolated to restoring his weakest point. Chris watched the girls and Leon making their way south out of the corner of his eye as he kept blasting, until he ran out of shells and needed to reload.

Then his eyes went wide as he saw two tentacles sprout almost instantaneously from Browning's giant, toothy mouth. The two tentacles wrapped around him, one around his stomach and one around his neck, and squeezed mercilessly. Chris groaned in agony as he was lifted several metres off the ground, all the while being crushed tighter and tighter by Browning's thick, slimy tentacles.

"This was fun, Chris. But I guess Wesker won after all." Browning somehow whispered.

The tentacles began to pull in opposite directions, Chris' body being ripped apart and crushed at the same time. He tried to scream, but his neck was ringed too tightly. He was about to drop the shotgun and start prying at the tentacles when he spotted what looked like another eyeball inside Browning's mouth. Getting light-headed and started to see spots, he decided not to argue with his instincts, and instead fired the shotgun at the eyeball. Browning instantly let go, emitting a terrible shrill scream and clutching at his mouth with dozens of slimy, rotting tentacles. Thick, lumpy orange slime and soft, mushy clumps bathed in blood came dripping furiously out of Browning's mouth. Chris caught his breath and watched in terror as Browning again started to regenerate.

"That's impossible…" Chris muttered, frowning in frustration.

"Chris! Hurry! Get over here!" Claire yelled at him from the other side of the hangar.

He suddenly remembered that he was supposed to stall Browning, then run. So he bolted as fast as his legs would carry him towards the others, just as he heard an explosion coming from above. When he reached them he looked up, and saw the north roof-section buckling and denting, accompanied by more explosions. The noise was deafening, the metal roof-sections amplifying the noise inside the huge hangar. Then the explosions stopped and were replaced by shrieking, ear-splitting metal-on-metal as the entire roof section came free. Browning was recovering quickly, and looked up just in time to see the roof section come crashing down on top of him.

"I guess you were wrong, Browning. Wesker lost again." Chris thought out loud.

He looked to Jill, who left Claire to help Leon, stepped over to him and wrapped him up in a hug.

"I hope it's for good this time." She said, burying her head in his chest.

For the first time in a long time, Chris Redfield finally felt like things might turn out okay after all.

_But then again, this is the fifth time I've thought that…_


End file.
